Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not Likely
by Maxine-san
Summary: Yet another BV get together, and I'll say the same thing every author does: THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT! But seriously, I tried to make it different than the others out there. What if Bulma tried to figure out who Mirai Trunks' parents were? Chapter 10 up!
1. Chapter 1

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 1 - **B-POV**

_disclaimer_ - I don't own DBZ! 'Nuff said.

_notes_ - lol, I dunno, do people still write B/V get-together fics? Used to be you could type that into the Search box and 40 billion fics would pop up. :) Yeah, so if you can't tell, this is a re-post of an older fic of mine. I haven't changed anything since I first wrote it, and as I still remember exactly where I was going with it, maybe one day soon I'll actually get around to finishing it, eh? Hehe.

From Bulma's POV!

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If someone had told me years ago that I'd end up living with Vegeta, raising his and my child, my jaw probably would have hit the ground while I stared at them in shock, before I went into a fit of rage. I mean come on, the guy killed my...well I guess we weren't exactly going out at the time, and Yamcha was ACTUALLY killed by one of those saibamen dudes, but that's besides the point. Vegeta had come to earth to, well, destroy it. Or at least everyone ON it. Sure, when I was young I was like every other girl, wishing that one day my prince in shining armor would charge in on his white stallion, sweep me off my feet, and then we'd ride of into the sunset together. I wasn't expecting Vegeta, PRINCE of the Saiyan Empire. As of now, that "empire" consists of two full-blooded saiyans, and a few half-breeds. The title still means a lot to him though. Anyway, before he came to earth threatening to blast anyone he saw, I decided to do something about my prince problem. So, as soon as I was old enough, I set out in search of the perfect boyfriend. I found Yamcha. For a while, we were great together. Then, when he realized what he'd been missing out on due to his shyness of girls, he decided that just one girlfriend wasn't enough. That didn't sit too well with me, so we broke up for a while. Of course, then he had to go and die, and as soon as he got wished back, we were together again. For a while, he stuck to being loyal. Then Vegeta came back to earth after his search for Goku, and the whole deal with Frieza happened, again. Only this time, no one from our group broke a sweat trying to beat him, thanks to that mysterious, purple-haired guy. That mysterious purple-haired guy...who could go super-saiyan. Vegeta wasn't too pleased with that. Right after that, Goku suddenly came back, and we got the news about androids attacking the earth in three years. Great, juuust peachy. It never ends, I swear.

So after that, we all went our separate ways again, but not before Goku decided to tell me I was having a baby. Wonderful, another thing I really didn't need to know. Of course, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and after Yamcha acted like a fool over it for a few minutes, I put it in the back of mind. I'd think about it later. Right after that, Yamcha and I went out to dinner. I felt kind of bad. After all, we'd just gotten news that everyone was going to die because of these androids, so while the others set off to train, my boyfriend and I were out partying. Oh well, we still had three years. And three years is a long time. A lot can happen, lemme tell ya...

I stumbled through the front door, hanging onto to Yamcha's arm to support myself. We'd been out at one our favorite clubs, and I think I might have had too much to drink. I usually don't drink a lot, but because of the news I'd just gotten earlier, it felt right that I should go get myself drunk. That would probably come back to haunt me in the morning. Clumsily, Yamcha helped me upstairs, and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I vaguely remember Yamcha walking out and saying he'd call me in the morning. Morning came all too soon, as my alarm clock started blaring into my ear at 7:30 a.m. Damn it... Groaning, I reached out my arm and searched blindly for the annoying device. Curse whoever invented it. Finally finding it, I switched it off and sat up, rubbing my eyes wearily. I considered going back to bed, but it would have been pointless. Plus, the pounding in my head wasn't going to go away until I got some Tylenol or something. After the headache finally started dying down, I headed downstairs to make myself some coffee. My mother was already there, bustling around the kitchen.

"Hey mom," I said tiredly, covering my mouth as I began to yawn.

"Morning honey!" she replied cheerfully. I blinked. How anyone could be that perky in the morning was beyond me. "Would you like some coffee?" I nodded, and slumped down at the table. "Honey, what's wrong? You look down," she said, sitting down and pushing a mug of steaming coffee in front of me. "Are you and Yamcha having problems again?" I debated for a moment whether or not I should tell her the news that guy from the future had given us, and decided that she'd find out eventually anyway. When I finished explaining everything, she looked every bit as cheerful as when I'd started talking. Had she even heard anything? If you know my mom, then you know that she can be a bit...ditzy at times. This time was no exception. "Oh well, that's a shame," she said, sipping from her mug. I looked at her like she was crazy for a while, and then gave up. There's no getting through to that woman, I swear. I grabbed a banana and headed down the hall to my lab. Surely there was something I could be inventing right now.

I managed to keep myself busy for a few hours, and by the time I went back upstairs, it was past twelve. It didn't take me long to realize I wasn't really hungry for lunch yet, so I decided to give Chichi a call. Now that Goku was finally back, she was hopefully her normal self again. The last time I called her, she was worrying more than usual and had some smart remark to everything I said.

"Hello?" came the quiet greeting over the phone. She didn't sound too good. Was she sick?

"Chichi?" I asked worriedly.

"Bulma? Is that you?"

"Yeah, what's wrong? I thought you'd be glad Goku's back."

"Yeah, reeaal thrilled," she said sarcastically. "He was back for all of twelve hours and then he runs off to train again. He's gone so much these days I barely recognize him anymore!" Chichi screamed into the phone. I blinked. Poor Chichi, I'd never really thought of it that way. I almost felt bad for. I mean, first her husband and son go to a nice reunion type of thing, which ends with her husband dead and her son off in the woods training for almost a year. The next time she actually got to see Goku was in the hospital after the fight with Vegeta. Then her son decided to go off to Namek, and as soon as Goku was better he followed. The planet almost blew up with them on it, and when Goku finally got back to earth he had to go train with Gohan for the new threat that was coming. Ok, scratch that "almost," I did feel bad for her.

"Man, Chichi, I'm sorry. But you know if they don't train, then we could all die in three years."

"You and Gohan would survive."

"...How'd you know?"

"Gohan and Goku told me about everything."

"So they told you about that guy from the future?"

"Yeah. Hey, did you know Goku knows who his parents are?" She sounded more excited now, I noticed. I was more interested in the fact that she knew who the kid's parents were.

"Seriously?" I exclaimed. "Oh, did he tell you?"

"No, he wouldn't tell me a thing. He said he'd promised he wouldn't."

"Aw man... Did he give you any hints about them?"

"Nope, but Gohan had mentioned he can go super-saiyan."

"Oh yeah, that's right. That means one of his parent has to be a saiyan. Well, most likely his father..." I said, more to myself than Chichi.

"It HAS to be his father. The only saiyans left are males, remember?"

"Maybe you and Goku are going to have another child!" I heard Chichi snort.

"The guy had purple hair, according to Gohan. Goku and I both have black."

"Hmm...well, maybe he dyed it," I suggested.

"His eyes were blue." Oh yeah...damn.

"Weelll, ok then. Maybe Go-"

"Gohan's only eight," she said sharply.

"Ok, were you like, planning this conversation or something?" I said jokingly.

"Well, I WAS thinking about it," she admitted. I chuckled.

"That leaves...Vegeta..."

"Yeah, I came to a dead end there."

"Hm...well, maybe he'll get a...girlfriend or something in the next couple of months." Chichi burst out laughing.

"Yeah," she said after she caught her breath, "Two things. One, when is Vegeta ever going to go out and find a girlfriend, and two, who would be crazy enough to go out with him!" I started laughing, as I thought about it.

"Good point. But then, who does that leave? I mean, if he IS the father, then there HAS to be a mother."

"Maybe the guy's a test tube baby or something."

"Why would Vegeta want a son to begin with?" I pointed out.

"To...uh...so he could have an heir...to the royal throne or something," she said, snickering.

"Ya, sure."

"Hey, it was just an idea."

"Not a very good one," I muttered.

"Hey!"

"Kidding, kidding. Oh hey! Did Goku mention anything about me having any kids?" I asked, Goku's departing remark suddenly coming back to me.

"...um...no, why?"

"I mean, in the near future?"

"No, he didn't say anything to me, why?"

"Well, before he left yesterday, he told me that he hoped I would have a healthy baby."

"...Goku said that?"

"Uh-huh. Yamcha went all goofy over it."

"Bulma, I don't want to depress you or anything, but Goku said the only people who are going to survive are Gohan and you. And that guy from the future. So if you do have a baby...well, I mean, we don't even know if I survive..." I gasped. It hadn't occurred to me that Chichi's name was never mentioned as one of the survivors of the androids.

"Oh man, Chichi..."

"Hey, don't worry. We have three years to get prepared this time, remember?"

"Oh yeah, that's true. I'm still worried though. I don't how my...future self has survived so long without you guys."

"Yeah well-"

"WOMAN!" I shrieked and nearly dropped the phone. Turning to the door, I spotted a smirking Vegeta. Man, I'd forgotten he was still staying here.

"Holy crap, Vegeta! Don't EVER sneak up on me like that!" I exclaimed, clutching a hand to my chest. Vegeta's smirk only widened.

"Why? Did I scare you?" he sneered. I glared at him.

"Only when I saw your face," I retorted.

"Don't you mean the mirror?" he spat back.

"Is there one in the doorway?" I asked sarcastically. He frowned and flipped me off. I, in return, stuck out my tongue. Mature, I know, but Chichi was yelling at me over the phone, and I didn't have time to think of anything else. "What! Chichi, I'm still here!" I yelled into the phone, turning away from Vegeta.

"Geez, you kind of disappeared on me for a minute."

"Yeah, sorry, but Vegeta, royal PAIN in the ASS, decided to come in from training," I said, loud enough for him to hear me.

"Woman! Who are you talking to?" Vegeta asked, taking up his regular stance- feet shoulder width apart with his arms crossed.

"I have a name, Vegeta! It's Bulma! B-U-L-M-A, Bulma! Or did you already forget?" Come on, I'd just told him that for nth time, what, yesterday?

"I asked you a question, woman!" I sighed. That man is impossible.

"It's Chichi, Vegeta." Vegeta blinked, apparently not expecting me to give in so easily.

"Kakarrot's mate?" I sighed again.

"Yes, Vegeta, GOKU's WIFE," I said, correcting him as if I were talking to a child. He scowled at me.

"Well, whatever you're gossiping about can't be that important, so hurry up! I've been training all morning so I'll be strong to save this worthless planet, and I'm hungry."

"Well, the fact that you've been training is obvious," I started. Vegeta smirked. Gah, he is so full of himself. "I mean, you're all sweaty and you smell really bad. Go take a shower or something. Lunch will be ready when you get back down." I ignored his growl and started to talk to Chichi again. "Sorry, Chichi, but...Chichi? Chichi! Hello?" I pulled the phone away from my ear, trying to figure out how we'd suddenly been disconnected. The answer came when I glanced at Vegeta, to find he'd torn the cord from it's socket.

"I take orders from no one," he said, his voice deadly. I could only gape at him as he turned on his heel and stalked out of the kitchen. A few minutes later, after I called Chichi back to apologize, I heard water running from upstairs and started laughing quietly.

"What's so funny?" Chichi asked me.

"It seems Vegeta 'obeyed my orders' anyway, whether he realizes it or not," I said quietly. Chichi started laughing with me.

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Hehe, oh man, re-reading this thing brings back so many memories... :)

-Maxine


	2. Chapter 2

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 2 - **B-POV**

From Bulma's POV again!

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For a while after that, I took to watching Vegeta every chance I got. I decided that if he WAS going to get a girlfriend or whatnot, I'd be the first to know about it. Chichi's statement the day before, "who would be crazy enough to go out with him," kept coming back to me. Who WOULD be crazy enough? Though most people don't even know about the time he first came to earth, Vegeta still doesn't have the image of one of those suave, handsome guys that girls fawn over. The scowl that's permanently on his face and the way that he carries himself when he walks, sleek and graceful, but with the authority of king...or prince...let's most people know that he shouldn't be messed with. Thus, their first impression is usually one of fear, awe, or maybe even both. But with the body he has...and he isn't all THAT bad looking, I have to admit, even if he is a bit short...I could see how maybe a few of the more daring girls out there could go for him. The only problem was that he NEVER went anywhere. Other than the places he'd fought at, I don't think the guy had ever set foot off the Capsule Corp. property. The longest trek he'd taken recently was probably from his room to the gravity room. It was rather annoying.

It was about two weeks later, after I hadn't learned a single thing about him, that I began to realize Vegeta was wearing the same clothes pretty much every day - that battle armor Krillen had shot him in, which, by the way, had been washed so it didn't smell anymore. He'd worn the shirt I gave him a few times, probably only because it said BADMAN on the back, but he hadn't touched the pants. I didn't really blame him. After all, they were yellow; yuck. I hadn't even expected him to wear the shirt again because it was pink, but wonders never cease. So, I realized this, and suddenly a light bulb went off above my head. There was a way I could get him out of the house, AND have a good excuse to do so. Off course, Vegeta didn't think it was all that great. In fact, he stared at me in what could barely be determined as shock for a brief second, before scowling, as usual.

"I don't need to go WITH you for you to by me new garments to wear, baka," he huffed, crossing his arms across that battered armor he always wore.

"But Vegeta," I said calmly, determined to keep my cool, "I don't know exactly what size you wear, so I need you there to try on the clothes."

"I refuse to act like some doll that you can dress up however you like." I frowned.

"Vegeta, for Kami's sake! I'm just trying to be civil towards you for once and buy you some new clothes! You've been wearing that stupid armor for the past who knows how long, and you won't wear the other outfit you have. If you don't come with me, I'm going to throw that stupid thing you're wearing out and fill your closet with pink shirts and yellow pants!" I threatened. It wasn't the best threat, but it worked. Vegeta actually looked a little freaked out for a second, before switching back to neutral.

"Then I'll just have to keep this on at all times then."

"I'll rip it off you if you even attempt that."

"Oh, so that's what this was about," he stated, smirking at me. It took me a second to register what he'd said, and when I finally did, all I could do was glare at him. He is SO full of himself! I muttered a few choice words under my breath, which I'm pretty sure he heard, and pointed to the car beside us.

"Whatever, just get in."

"I'm not going in that thing! We can fly there."

"Like hell! You can't FLY to a mall Vegeta. It doesn't work like that on Earth." He stared at me for a while before finally dropping his arms to his sides and getting ready to climb into the car. I was a little surprised he'd given in so quickly, but that been happening a lot lately for both of us, so I pushed it aside. He was halfway into the car before I remembered something drastically important. "Wait," I commanded.

"Now what, woman?" he scowled at me over his shoulder.

"I'm not taking you anywhere in that." He was still wearing the armor. He'd be attracting enough attention with the hairstyle he had. Wearing battle armor that was cracked and had a gaping hole in the middle of it wouldn't help the situation any.

"Well what do you expect me to put on?" he asked exasperatedly. I didn't answer and looked at him expectantly. "No," he said plainly. "I'll go with you, but I will not go in that ridiculous ensemble."

"Look, we'll get another outfit right away so you can wear that while we shop for more things, ok?" He growled at me, but complied, and in a few minutes we were finally off to the mall.

The main reason I had brought Vegeta with me was to see what type of reaction he would get from the people around him. I was right about the fear thing. Almost every girl that walked by would suddenly cling to their boyfriends' arms, and a couple of the guys even shuddered under his cold stare. It bugged me a little. Sure Vegeta does have a sort of threatening appearance, but he wasn't any worse than some of the other people there. Maybe it was the fact that he turned his glare onto anyone who dared to stare at him for too long, which was almost everyone around us. I've been on the receiving end of that glare, and believe me, it IS a scary thing to look at. I shook my head. I was clueless as to how that kid would ever be conceived. Vegeta certainly didn't show any interest to the other women around us. I gave up on it for a while, and decided to get on with the shopping part because I wasn't sure how long Vegeta would actually stay there. For all I knew, he could fly off in two minutes if he got bored enough.

We went into one of my favorite stores at that particular mall. It has an excellent selection of both men and women's clothing. I've bought many things for Yamcha and myself there before, but this time I was trying hard not to wander to the Women's section. If I did, I wouldn't be out for hours. I started picking out outfits for Vegeta. Most of the outfits were made up of dark colors, a lot of blues and blacks. They seemed to look the best on him anyway. Somewhere along the line, I picked out a really nice dark blue, button down silk shirt, and a pair of black slacks to go with it. I had no idea where he would wear something that nice, but what the hell. When he came out of the stall, I nearly had a heart attack. Kami, he looked good. He'd left the first few buttons undone at the collar, and the sleeves were rolled up a bit. He wasn't really paying attention to me at first, so I allowed my eyes to roam over his body quickly, before returning them to his face. He was glaring at me. But then I realized, not at me, more like everything else BUT me. Glancing around I noticed that most of the girls close to us had stopped what they were doing to gaze at Vegeta appreciatively. I suddenly got the urge to deck them all, but refrained from it. After all, it's not like I had any sort of claim to him. Clearing my throat, I gave Vegeta a thumb's up sign.

"You've got an audience," I told him. He, of course, scowled. Big surprise there. I turned back to what I'd been looking at before. Vegeta had enough outfits to last him a while now, including training clothes. But he was lacking in other essentials... "So, I was thinking of getting you these smiley face boxers," I said picking up a pair. "Do you like them in black or white?" I smirked as he blinked, and I noticed the tiniest bit of pink creeping into his cheeks. He looked down at the table.

"Actually I like these better," he said, picking up a different pair. I resisted the urge to laugh, but failed slightly. Go figure, he'd picked the type of smiley faced boxers that have the bullet hole through their foreheads. I should have seen that coming. Chuckling slightly, I threw a bunch of solid black pairs into the cart, and one with pink polka dots for good measure. He apparently didn't notice, because I know he wouldn't have allowed it.

Sometime later, after we'd finished with the clothes part of the shopping, I decided it was time for lunch.

"Are you hungry?" I asked the saiyan next to me. He was wearing one of the more casual outfits I'd bought.

"No," he replied. Of course, not ten seconds later his stomach growled. Vegeta frowned even more than he had been. "Well, maybe a little," he admitted. I smirked.

"Let's go to the food court then." I was a little nervous when we got our food and sat down to eat. This was the first time I'd ever eaten alone with him. Usually my parents or Yamcha were around for me to talk to, and I had no idea how I was going to hold a conversation with Vegeta that didn't end with one of us stalking off in the opposite direction. But then I realized that being with Vegeta didn't require a conversation. He was more likely to hang around longer if I DIDN'T talk to him. So, we ate in silence. He was done a lot sooner than I was, but I hardly ever finish everything I order anyway, so after throwing our stuff away, we started shopping again.

"What else are we getting?" Vegeta asked, breaking the silence between us. I jumped a little, his voice startling me, which was silly because it was far from quiet in the mall anyway.

"Well, I figured you need shoes, right? You can't always wear those boots everywhere." Vegeta only nodded, looking very bored with the whole mall thing by now. Since he'd dropped his glare, the looks he was receiving were no longer of fear. Definitely awe, and maybe even lust from some of the girls. I realized then, that it probably wouldn't be too difficult for Vegeta to pick up any girl he wanted. I just...didn't see that happening. So anyway, we got new shoes for the both of us. There had been this one pair that was just too cute for me to pass up, and besides, I hadn't bought anything else all day. I was actually very proud of myself for that. By the time we got home, it was dark out, and Vegeta looked very irritated.

"You do realize that I've missed a whole day of training, right?" he inquired, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. I shrugged.

"Yeah, well, you really needed clothes. And besides, what is one day?"

"Say that for thirty days over the course of a year, and you'll have already missed out on a month. Spread out over time, it seems like nothing, but in the long run it can mean a lot," he said coolly, getting out of the car. He shut the door and turned towards the house. I stared after him for a few seconds, comprehending what he'd said. I had to admit...it was true.

"Wait, Vegeta!" I called after him, hopping out of the car. He turned to look at me, and I tried to think of what I'd wanted to say. "Uh...here, you forgot your stuff," I said lamely, throwing him the capsule that contained all of his new clothes. He caught it deftly, and turned on his heel to walk into the house. It didn't occur to me until later that he hadn't even bothered to thank me, and even then I didn't really care. I was still surprised he'd actually stayed the whole day.

I don't know if it was because of that one day he missed of training, but for the next couple of days, Vegeta worked nonstop in the gravity chamber. He got so worked up one of those days that he actually ended up blowing the damn thing up. I think most of you know about this. Yamcha had been training at Capsule Corp. that day, thank Kami, and he helped me carry him to the infirmary. He didn't seem to pleased that I was so worried over him, not that I even know why I was worried. I reasoned that it was the shock from the fact that he had actually been IN the room when it had blown up and he could have been seriously hurt. Well, he WAS seriously hurt; it actually knocked him unconscious for a while, but he really could have been killed, and that was a scary thought. We needed him in the upcoming battle, despite what Yamcha and some of the others of our group thought. Plus, for some reason I wasn't sure, I really wanted that kid to able to be born. I don't know why I was so worked up over that. I didn't even know for sure if Vegeta WAS the father. For all we knew, maybe there was another saiyan out in the universe somewhere, or maybe Vegeta was right and the purple-haired kid with the Capsule Corp. jacket wasn't a saiyan, but some other species that could give themselves blonde hair and- wait a second... Capsule Corp. jacket! I replayed the boy's image over in my mind, remembering the conversation we'd had. It hit me like a ton of bricks. How could I have forgotten the jacket he had on? Maybe Vegeta didn't have to leave the grounds...maybe he would hook up with one of the female employees that worked at Capsule Corp.! (A/N: sweatdrop yeaaahhh, sure Bulma...)

Thrilled with my new discovery, I began tending to Vegeta's wounds, thinking of which girl I thought would be the best match for the saiyan prince. None came to mind immediately; they were all too brainy. But maybe Vegeta liked smart women. I really had no idea what his tastes were. I focused on the wounds I was cleaning, and gasped. Where had all those scars come from? It was unbelievable how many there were. How had I not noticed them? I'd seen Vegeta shirtless before, but never up close enough to notice the smaller scars. They were all across his chest and back. Some looked like they were from battles, and others across his back looked like they came from a whip or something. I put a hand to my mouth, my eyes involuntarily filling up with tears. What exactly had he been through before he came to earth? I placed my other hand tentatively on Vegeta's face, about to stroke his cheek, but drew it back immediately when he flinched backwards into the pillows, away from my touch. I don't think it was from pain either. At least not pain from the explosion he had just been in. It was like he was afraid to let someone touch him. His eyes clenched shut, tighter than before. Quickly, I finished cleaning out his wounds and put my medical kit away. There was a lot to Vegeta I didn't know about, I realized. More than just his tastes in women, probably more than I would ever want to know, but I was determined to find out anyway.

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More chapters coming soon!

-Maxine


	3. Chapter 3

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely...- Chapter 3 - **B-POV**

Still Bulma's POV...

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I meant to keep my eye on Vegeta, like, 24/7, but that didn't last too long for many reasons. One, Vegeta wasn't too pleased that I was suddenly hovering around him all the time and worrying about him. He told me quite bluntly to leave him alone. Actually, he yelled it at me while he was stuck on the bottom of the gravity room floor. That pissed me off. After all, I was just worried about his health! I should have known better though. He was a saiyan, so in no time all of his injuries had healed anyway. It was useless to try to have a normal conversation with him. He always had to insult me or my family or friends or something, and I always took the bait. Plus, he gets real touchy if you bring up anything about his past life. After a while I just plain got bored with watching him so much. He didn't lead a very exciting life. Plus, I had other matters to worry about. My relationship with Yamcha was steadily going downhill. He very obviously didn't like Vegeta, and he didn't bother hiding his feelings. I found this kind of annoying and told him so. He really needed to realize that Vegeta was probably the second strongest guy in our group, so we would definitely need him. Of course, he thought it was annoying that I thought he was annoying, so we ended up not speaking to each other for almost two weeks.

There was one time in my life that I seriously thought Yamcha and I would end up together, old and wrinkled with tons of great-grandchildren. I soon realized that that wasn't what was going to happen. So instead of waiting for Yamcha to come crawling back, which was what always happened after our fights, I took the initiative and went to his house. I'll admit, I half expected him to have another woman over, but I shouldn't have worried. He hadn't been with anyone else since he'd died, and I felt bad for even thinking he might of. Yamcha took the breakup pretty well. He was upset, but I think he understood the reasons behind my decision. He told me that he'd always be there if I needed him, and we promised to remain friends. Of course, this kind statement of his was immediately followed up with, "Is there someone else you've been seeing?" It took me by surprise, and he misunderstood my look for guilt.

"It's Vegeta, isn't it?" he grumbled, crossing his arms and looking away. I stared at him like he was crazy, before bursting out in laughter.

"I should slap you for even mentioning that!" I managed to get out. Yamcha looked thoroughly confused. "I haven't been seeing anyone Yamcha, I wouldn't do that," I said further. When the words sunk in, Yamcha acquired this sheepish look that could've matched Goku's, especially when he started scratching his head.

"Geez, sorry Bulma. It seemed like you really had a thing for him though, so I just assumed-"

"Just assumed is right," I cut in. "But hey, it's ok. No sweat. Just don't say anything like THAT again." He laughed.

"Sure thing."

"So, I'll see you around then, right? Don't be a stranger at Capsule Corp., 'cause I'll get bored real fast. There's still over two years before these things come."

"Right, I'll drop in every so often. Take care of yourself." We hugged each other, and for a brief second, as I smelled the familiar scent of his cologne, I almost changed my mind about breaking up with him. We'd spent so many years together, and he was pretty much the only boyfriend I'd ever had. My eyesight started to get blurry as tears got in the way when I started thinking about all the good times we'd had and all the things we'd been through together. But, life goes on, I told myself. Pulling away, I glanced up, startled to see that the look on his face mirrored how I was feeling. I gave him a small smile.

"It was fun," I said simply. Yamcha nodded, and I pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. Before I actually did change my mind, I turned and walked down the path. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time. I wasted no time in driving away, eager to get away from there. As soon as I got home though, I sat in the car for a good thirty minutes thinking abut what I'd just done. Eventually I got out, and when I shut the car door, I imagined myself closing the door on that part of my life or something. It was a little corny, but it lifted my spirits somewhat. It was still early, not even 8:00, but on my way up the sidewalk I realized something a little strange.

The gravity room wasn't on.

Instead of the usual hum I should've still been hearing, there was this empty silence, and it kind of freaked me out. Changing my destination, I quickened my pace and walked over to the chamber, wondering if maybe Vegeta was, by chance, still training. He should have been for a good...four more hours. Peeking into the window, I noticed he wasn't there. I wasn't too worried; I mean he might have decided on finishing early or something. Maybe he finally came to his senses and realized that even HE needed to rest sometimes. I walked into the house, and the silence followed me. My parents had gone out to dinner, but I'd still expected there to be some sort of noise, like from the T.V. or something. There was nothing. Vegeta was nowhere on the main floor. I climbed the stairs to my room, and after dumping of my purse and shoes, I walked across the hall to Vegeta's room. There was no response when I knocked, so I cracked the door open and peeked in.

Vegeta wasn't there.

I blinked, and stepped all the way into the room. I hadn't been in there since Vegeta started living at Capsule Corp. It hadn't changed that much, except that there was a closet full of clothes. It's not like Vegeta has a lot of stuff to put on display, unlike me who has a CD Player, makeup, and everything else under the sun spread out across the top of my dresser. I should really buy him a radio or something. I always find it easier to exercise with music, but he would probably call it a distraction. Who knows. I backed out of the room and headed downstairs, intent on finding something to snack on.

Sometime later, around 11:00 I guess, I finally headed back upstairs to go to sleep. Vegeta still wasn't back from wherever he had gone to. I figured maybe he was training with Goku or something. Anyway, come morning, he was back in the gravity room. I didn't see him all day, not even for meals, so I finally went out to see if he wanted a late night dinner or something.

Once again, he wasn't there.

That confused me to no end. How could he disappear for two nights like that? This went on for, no joke, almost three months. I hardly ever saw Vegeta, and when I did, he refused to answer my questions. I finally gave up, and pretended that he was going out on secret dates that he didn't want me to know about. It was a reasonable idea, I mean, the kid from the future had to be born somehow. What I didn't expect was for the idea to make me jealous. I guess I was upset that HE could go out and have fun when I was stuck at home. At least, that's what I told myself. I hadn't bothered to try and get a new boyfriend yet. Yamcha had already gotten over me, I knew because he'd been hanging around this other girl. He actually introduced us once, and I have to admit, she was very sweet. I kind of hoped Yamcha would be smart enough to stick with her and not do anything stupid.

Anyway, one night, I was sitting out on my balcony reading a book. It was about 8:30, and since it was still summer, there was plenty of light to read by. The gravity machine was still humming, but it was one of those sounds that you don't notice until it turns off, sort of like an air conditioner. You know what I mean? Well, suddenly the room was turned off, and I looked up sharply, noticing the absence of noise. Then suddenly an idea occurred to me. I felt kind of stupid; it was such a no-brainer thing. Why didn't I just WATCH and see where Vegeta went? So, that's what I did. He came out of the room, clad in training shorts, with a towel around his neck. His body was still glistening with sweat, and it shone in the fading light. I swear, I think I was drooling. No joke, the guy has a great body. He really does. Then I started feeling guilty, ogling this man who had come to the earth years ago intent on destroying it. But then I realized I really had nothing to feel guilty about. I was a free woman, and Vegeta was technically on our side, so I kept on staring, while at the same time trying to be discreet about it. Apparently he didn't notice me anyway. I watched as he flew up to his room, which, like mine, has a balcony. It's not too far down from mine either, seeing as his room is just across the hall. By this point I was making it obvious that I was watching him. I wanted him to notice, thinking that maybe I could get him talking. It sort of worked.

"What are you staring at?" Vegeta asked gruffly, finally glancing over at me before opening the door to his room.

"I was just wondering where you were going. Its pretty early for you to be done training." Well, not really, he'd been finishing this early for about three months.

"I'm not going anywhere," he replied. I raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Do you want some dinner then? You haven't been eating too well lately." Great, there I went with the worrying again. It was true though, and it was starting to show. His body was sort of sagged over tiredly; he'd totally abandoned his princely stance. I noticed this with some alarm, and looked at his face through wide eyes. "Vegeta, are you ok?" I asked sincerely. And worriedly. There was no hiding that tone from my voice. I was expecting him to snap at me or something, but he only sighed deeply. It was disconcerting.

"Why do you care?" I was taken aback by the way he asked that question. Gone was the sharp tone he used to use. Instead, it was like he really wanted to know. I placed my book on the table next to me and stood up, facing him.

"Vegeta, what's wrong? You're really starting to worry me." Kami, worry, worry, worry. I was acting like his mother. Actually, I had no idea what his mother had ever acted like, which brought me back to fact that I knew nothing about his past. If I played my cards right though, I might actually be able to get him talking tonight. Vegeta didn't answer me, he only repeated his previous question, only more urgently this time. I sighed. It was a good question. Why did I care so much? I racked my brain for a reasonable answer. "I just...do, Vegeta," I replied slowly. "I...I don't know WHY. You live here, so I should care what happens to you."

"You care now, but only a few months ago, you wouldn't have given a damn. Am I right?" he asked, crossing his arms. I blinked.

"Well of course." I immediately regretted the way that had come out, but Vegeta didn't seem to care any.

"I haven't changed at all." I snorted. "I haven't!" Vegeta insisted.

"You're talking to me. Goku's still alive and you aren't at his house threatening to kill him. You keep insisting that you're training so you'll be strong enough to defeat the androids, which means you will be working with us. You've changed Vegeta." He didn't seem too happy about the fact, but nodded slowly.

"I guess I have," he said dejectedly. "This fucking mud ball of a planet has been wearing off on me," he continued to mutter. My eyes widened, and I decided it was time for a subject change.

"So, where have you been for these past three months?" I asked, leaning over the railing. Vegeta blinked at me.

"Here," he replied. I rolled my eyes.

"At NIGHT." He looked at me strangely.

"HERE," he repeated.

"...Seriously?"

"uh-huh."

"...oh," was all I could get out. For some reason I was relieved, but at the same time I was also upset. Vegeta had started to enter his room again. "Hey Vegeta!" I called out. He stopped and glanced back at me. "Are you sure you're not hungry?"

"Positive." He disappeared into his room. I returned to my own, and went down to the kitchen to get myself something to eat. If Vegeta hadn't been going out at night, then that meant that he really wasn't eating well. I tried watching T.V. for a while, but I wasn't really paying attention to what was on, so I kept missing what was happening. Eventually, I turned it off and went back to my room. I stepped through the door, and even though the lights weren't on, my room was lit up. I glanced out the window and noticed that there was a full moon (A/N: Wait...wasn't the moon destroyed by Piccolo?...Oh well, we'll have to ignore that. ), thus the reason for so much light. I walked out onto the balcony without taking my eyes off of the glowing orb, as if I was in a trance or something. It was really beautiful. I leaned gently against the rail, not wanting to make any noise that would disrupt the peace. There was a slight noise behind me, and I looked over my shoulder, thinking it was a leaf or something. Instead, my eyes widened as I noticed Vegeta sitting on the roof above his room. He looked miserable, staring at some spot in the sky that wasn't anywhere near the moon. In fact, his back was what I was looking at.

I went back downstairs to the kitchen, passing my parents who had now claimed the living room, watching some old movie. And I mean OLD movie. It was black and white. Anyway, I made some coffee quickly, pouring it into two travel mugs, and threw together some sandwiches. With no clear idea about what I was doing, I rushed back upstairs and pushed open the door to Vegeta's room. Quietly, I opened the balcony door and stepped out onto the patio. He hadn't noticed me yet. I took a deep breath.

"Hey, Vegeta," I said softly. He jerked his head around to look down at me.

"What're you doing he-"

"Here, take these, will you?" I asked, cutting him off. He reached down and took the mugs from me after a few seconds, and then the plate of sandwiches. After that, I stepped up onto the rail. Vegeta looked like he was about to protest, but stopped when I easily hoisted myself up. I smirked at his semi-surprised look. "I used to come up here all the time when I was younger," I explained, plopping down next to him. "So is this where you've been coming every night?" He nodded. "How-"

"Why are you here?" he asked, this time cutting me off. Once again, he sounded like he just wanted to know.

"To get you to eat," I replied, picking up the plate of sandwiches. I shoved them at him. He looked at them, and then back at me.

"I told you before, I'm not hungry." Ah, his old gruff voice was back. I felt like jumping for joy. It was strange.

"Yeah, it wasn't a option," I countered. "And you don't have to worry. These were nowhere near the stove. All cold cuts." He smirked. We both knew how bad my cooking was. I was never a domestic type of girl. Too boring.

"Well, in that case..." He picked up one of the sandwiches and bit into it. In no time, all of them were gone, and Vegeta was licking his fingers.

"You weren't hungry?" I asked slyly. He scowled at me. I only chuckled. At least he was beginning to act normal again.

* * *

One more chapter tonight...

-Maxine


	4. Chapter 4

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 4 - **B-POV**

And _still_ Bulma's POV, hehe. It changes next chapter.

* * *

We sat quietly for a few minutes, and I used the time to study Vegeta out of the corner of my eye. He was still looking at that one spot in the sky. I turned my gaze upwards, but didn't see anything worth looking at.

"What are you looking at?" I asked finally. Vegeta only grunted.

"Nothing...I should be looking at something...but I'm not," he said tiredly. My eyebrows furrowed as I tried to figure out what he meant.

"What-"

"That's where Vegetasei used to be," he said, cutting me off. My eyebrows shot up. "At least I'm pretty sure that's where it used to be," he continued. He suddenly looked more depressed than he did seconds ago. "...don't even know where my own planet used to be..." he mumbled on.

"Are you alright, Vegeta?" I asked, probably for the fortieth time that night. I placed my hand on his shoulder without even thinking about it, but pulled it off again so fast I almost went flying over the side of the roof from the speed of it. Was it even possible for someone to tense up as fast as Vegeta just had? My eyes widened.

"...sorry..." Vegeta grumbled, looking almost as sheepish as Goku sometimes does. He wouldn't look at me though. It was a little too dark to tell, but I think he might have been blushing because of his actions. I blinked.

"Did you just say sorry?" I asked incredulously. I couldn't help myself; I didn't even think the word was in his vocabulary! Vegeta just grunted again, before his eyes suddenly narrowed and he turned to me.

"Yes I said sorry," he said bitterly. "And you know what else? THANK YOU for the sandwiches tonight. It was very KIND of you to do that for me. You're a GREAT COOK." My only response was for my eyes to get even wider. "Am I really THAT much of a bastard? That cold-hearted that I can't even apologize without someone looking at me like I've grown an extra head!" he continued. I suddenly felt really bad about what I'd said.

"Vegeta, I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that, honest." Vegeta gasped.

"Did you just APOLOGIZE?" he asked sarcastically. Crossing my arms, I glared at him. "See, you judge me on what you've heard from the others. What have I ever done to you, personally, to give you such an impression of me? You weren't there when I first fought Kakarrot," he said. I didn't want to tell him that I'd actually watched the whole thing on Babba's crystal ball, because I didn't know how he'd react to that.

"You threatened me on Namek, when you were after the dragon balls," I pointed out instead. Kami, I need to learn when to keep my mouth shut. Vegeta turned away from me for a second and clenched his fists.

"Ok then," he said slowly, as if trying to stay calm. "Ever since I've stayed at your house, have I ever really done any harm to you? I might threaten you now and then when we argue, but you know I'll never follow through with it. It's not like I have a death wish with Kakarrot or something," he said, mumbling the last part. I blinked.

"Are you admitting he could defeat you?" I asked unbelievingly. Vegeta sighed.

"Only because he's a Super Saiyan," he grumbled.

"Why are you acting like this? There is something seriously wrong here," I said, backing up a little. It was scaring me how he was acting all depressed or something.

"You want to know what's wrong?" Vegeta asked, laughing lowly. It sent chills down my spine. "I'll tell you what's wrong," he continued, standing up abruptly. "Look at me!" he said, turning to face me and spreading his arms out wide. "I'm the prince of the Saiyan race. A saiyan race that now only consists of a third class baka and his half-breed brat who know NOTHING about their own culture. My title has no meaning here. When I was younger, and my being prince actually meant something to Nappa and Raditz, I stuck to a belief that somehow I could...rebuild the Saiyan Empire after I killed Frieza. It was what I lived for, the only thing that kept me going. I seriously believed that one day I would be the one to finally end that bastard's life. And then comes along this third-class nobody, and not only does he turn into a Super Saiyan, but HE defeats Frieza, after, of course, I had already been killed," Vegeta said bitterly. He was pacing back and forth now. "And then I suddenly got wished back, entirely by accident. So I was stuck on this stupid planet with nowhere to go, until YOU asked me to stay here. And I accepted the invitation, because I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. My entire purpose of living was gone suddenly, and I was stuck. The prince of an empire that doesn't exist, sitting on a roof, telling this to you, wearing...sweat pants and a fucking Old Navy t-shirt!" he yelled. "Oh, and to make matters worse, I don't have my tail anymore," he said bitterly, glancing over his shoulder down his back. "It was cut off by some weakling human, and I don't think it's coming back this time...the one thing that distinguishes me from some baka human..."

"Well, your hair's a little different," I said meekly. Yeah, dumb thing to say when someone finally starts telling you what's bothering them.

"Shut up," Vegeta growled at me. He was still pacing. I really didn't know what to say after that. I still couldn't believe he'd just told me all that. It was so unlike him.

"If it makes you feel any better, Goku didn't really beat Frieza. That kid from the-"

"Oh yes, let's add THAT to the list. Some unknown, supposedly saiyan from the future, who's younger than Kakarrot, can ALSO go Super Saiyan. And I...can't," Vegeta finished quietly, his shoulders slumping over. "No matter what I do, I can't get myself to transform... Some great prince I am. I just don't know what I'm doing anymore," he said, sitting down slowly and then throwing himself back into a lying position. He sighed deeply and put his hands behind his head, staring off into space again.

"Well...that should be obvious," I said, crawling over to him. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye as I sat down near him. "You're training to fight the androids."

"What's the point? I'm supposed to die anyway." I frowned.

"That's not a good way to look at it. You were given three years warning, and you should be using it to your full advantage. That way you WON'T die."

"Well then what after that? Then I'll really have nowhere to go. There won't be any point in me staying on this crummy planet anymore, and I can't go back to purging other planets."

"...You can always come back here until you figure something out."

"You're not going to want me around after I've already been here for three years. Trust me."

"You know how many guest rooms there are in this house. And it's not like I see you much now anyway," I insisted.

"Yeah well, by then you'll probably be married to Yamcha and you'll have fifteen kids or something," he muttered, saying Yamcha's name like it was some vile, disgusting thing. I looked away and sort of chuckled.

"Yamcha and I broke up three months ago, Vegeta." He propped himself up on his elbows and looked over at me.

"Seriously?" Geez, he never believes anything I say.

"Uh-huh," I replied.

"...Oh." He went back to staring at the stars, and I just kind of sat there for a while.

"What has your life been like?" I asked, breaking the silence between us. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them. Beside me I heard Vegeta inhale sharply, and I could feel him tense up again slightly. I hadn't even realized I was sitting that close to him, but I wasn't about to stop now. There were questions I wanted answered. "I mean, I know it was horrible working under Frieza and-"

"You don't KNOW," Vegeta growled. I looked at him.

"What?"

"You don't know," he repeated. "You ASSUME. You will never know because the bastard's dead now, but you can assume because of everything you've heard about him." I nodded slowly. That made sense.

"Well, what about your life before that?" I asked, sensing that Vegeta didn't want to talk about Frieza. "When Vegetasei was still there?" I pressed on. Vegeta gave this little shrug.

"I was the prince," he said simply. "I was expected to be strong, so I always had to train. I was well protected, and unlike most Saiyan babies, I was not sent to another planet to destroy its inhabitants. It was a normal life, by Saiyan standards." He frowned then. "Of course then my father handed me over to Frieza at the age of five, and my life pretty much went to hell from there."

"What about your mother?"

"I...don't know. I can't remember her really. When Frieza realized my potential strength, he got rid of her and made up some story. I can't recall what it was."

"He...got rid of her?" I echoed.

"Better the Queen than the King," Vegeta shrugged. "According to Frieza anyway."

"So...Frieza was...worried?" I asked trying to put all the pieces together.

"Scared, yes, that too many strong saiyans of royal blood would be born. We could have easily overpowered him, especially if a Super Saiyan was born. Even though he 'didn't believe in that child's tale,'" Vegeta spat, mimicking Frieza's voice. Then he chuckled. "He really should have checked the lower classes."

"...Why do you tense up so quickly when someone touches you?" I placed my hand on his arm to see if it would happen again, and sure enough, within a second he was like a brick wall. Then he scowled and pushed my hand away, but remained lying down.

"Training was harsh," was all he replied.

"Are you like that everywhere?" I asked, finding it kind of amusing. Not the reason behind it, mind you, just the fact that he would freeze up so abruptly like that. I reached down and put a hand on his knee, chuckling as he kicked at me lightly.

"Stop it," he growled, obviously not finding anything funny about it.

"It's not that big a deal Vegeta," I said, sitting up again. My fingers brushed by his side, but this time he didn't freeze. Instead he squirmed a little. It was hardly noticeable, but I saw it. I ran my fingers along his side again, and he tried to bat them away but his hands were moving a little more sluggishly. He looked like he was biting his lower lip slightly. My eyes widened a little. "Are you ticklish, Vegeta?" I asked in wonder. He scowled again and attempted to grab my hands, but by some miracle they were moving too fast for him. I caught a glimpse of panic in his face before I started tickling him without mercy. Soon he was laughing, real, genuine laughter, and rolling onto his side trying to get away from me. I know I was laughing too, amazed to see him like this. It was kind of weird. Finally I stopped and pulled back, panting slightly. Vegeta lay sprawled out beside me, also catching his breath. Then he growled unexpectedly.

"If I were you, I wouldn't do that again," he said, sitting up to look me in the eye. I just shrugged, unfazed by his attitude.

"Well, newsflash, Vegeta. You're not me," I whispered. Then I laughed again. "Ha! I know one of your weak points!" I exclaimed. He blinked at me, and then smirked. About point two seconds later, no joke, I found myself pinned to the floor, er, roof I guess. I stared wide-eyed up at Vegeta.

"I bet you have similar weak points," Vegeta said, reaching down with hand to grab my foot. My BARE foot. Panic set in right about then.

"Nononononononono!" I yelped, attempting to break out of his grip. I might as well have tried buttoning a zipper. Soon I was shrieking with laughter, and virtually out of breath as Vegeta used my own methods against me. It wasn't cool. He finally stopped, after I was blue in the face from lack of air.

"You dumbass," I muttered, glaring at him from beneath my messy bangs. We both knew I was kidding though. It was around this time that he actually noticed my new hair cut. Oh, did I forget to tell you that? Oops... See, the perm was coming out, and I wasn't too fond of the way it puffed up everywhere anyway, so I got a straight, simple cut. I like it a lot. I've discovered that I like shorter hair better now, I think. Uh, sorry, I kinda went off on a tangent there. Anyway...

"You changed your hair," Vegeta said suddenly, looking at my new do.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I did that about a month ago." He sat down next to me as I attempted to straighten out my hair a little. I gave up in the end.

"Have I really been sulking that long?" he asked, looking at the stars again. I glanced at him.

"Well, I wouldn't call it sulking...you were just...depressed for a little while," I said. He smirked.

"I'm probably so far behind in my training that there's no point starting again."

"It'll be more of a challenge," I pointed out. He nodded.

"Right, I have to become a Super Saiyan by the time the androids get here." He sighed again. "I guess tomorrow's back to normal then," he said gruffly. I smiled.

"Good. You had me worried for a while." Then I paused. "Actually, no, I thought you were sneaking out or something." Vegeta snorted.

"Where would I go?" he asked. I shrugged.

"No idea... You hungry?" At the mere mention of food, Vegeta's stomach started growling. I'm positive he blushed this time, though it wasn't a lot.

"I'm starving," he admitted sheepishly. I began gathering the mugs and the plate and headed for the edge of the roof.

"Come on, I'll fix you something." I climbed down the railing while Vegeta just levitated himself down. I watched him for a second, and felt this spark of jealousy that I always get when someone starts flying around me. Kami, I wish I could do that. "Hey, since it's been a while since you've trained normally," I said, on our way to the kitchen, "try not to overdo it, ok? My dad has a Capsule Corp. conference in the U.S. next week, so if you blow up the thing again I WON'T be able to fix it for a while." Vegeta grunted in response.

"How long will he be gone?" he asked.

"Uhh...I think the conference is for...two or three weeks. Three I think. And my mom's going with him, so we'll be eating takeout for a while," Vegeta nodded. When we arrived in the kitchen, Vegeta sat down at the table while I pulled out leftovers from the fridge. We'd been eating a lot of leftovers lately because every time my mother cooked, she'd make a ton of food in case Vegeta decided to eat with us again. Needless to say, there always a lot left.

I heated him up some steak from last night, and sat across from him at the table while he ate it. I still had one more question to ask him, but I wasn't sure how he'd take it.

"Hey Vegeta?" I said hesitantly. He glanced up at me. I paused, thinking of how to phrase what I wanted to say. "Do...do you think you'll ever settle down?" I finally got out. He raised an eyebrow.

"Settle down?"

"Yeah, you know, and start a family?" He chewed thoughtfully for a couple seconds, and then shrugged.

"Dunno," he said, swallowing. "I never really thought about it. If I ever do, it won't be anytime soon because of the androids, and it won't be on this planet." I frowned slightly.

"Why not?" Vegeta shrugged again.

"The women here are too pathetic. Strength wise," he added quickly when I opened my mouth to make some snappy comeback. "They might get hurt or something," he muttered, smirking. I snorted.

"Excuse me?" I asked. "Chichi had Gohan," I pointed out.

"Yes, well, Kakarrot was a lot weaker then, and his mate is one of the strongest women on the planet, is she not? And I noticed they only have the ONE brat."

"I...well...ok fine. That's true. But still!"

"Why do you ask?" He'd finished eating, so he just leaned back in his chair and regarded me with carefully masked curiosity. I debated for a second whether I should tell him or not, and finally decided, what the hell.

"I was just thinking a about that guy from future," I said, picking up Vegeta's plate and heading towards the sink.

"What about him?"

"When he came to tell us about the androids, you said he was lying about being a Saiyan. But just a little while ago, when we were outside, you said he DID go Super Saiyan." Vegeta shrugged and glanced away from me.

"He did," he grumbled. "But what does that matter?"

"Well...he came from the future, but he hasn't been born yet here. And he's not Goku's son, that was pretty obvious, so..." I raised my hands and shrugged my shoulders, trying to appear clueless. Vegeta blinked.

"What does it matter if he's not Kakarrot's son? What're you-" he paused. "Do you think he's...MY son?" he asked, eyes widening slightly. I nodded slowly. Vegeta grunted. "I hadn't thought about it... I suppose it's...possible," he said slowly. He sat thinking it over for a few minutes, and then suddenly pushed himself away from the table. He began heading out of the kitchen.

"Hey wait, where are you going?" I called out after him.

"To bed. I plan on training all day tomorrow," he answered gruffly. With a slight wave of his hand over his shoulder, Vegeta walked out and left me alone in the room, not waiting for me to reply. Well, he ended THAT conversation rather abruptly.

I turned back to the sink, playing the night's events over in my head. Vegeta had been acting strange for the past couple months, but as far as I could tell he was going back to normal again. Good thing too. You get too stressed out living with a depressed Saiyan.

* * *

Vegeta's a bit chatty there, isn't he? Heh. Oops. :)

-Maxine


	5. Chapter 5

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... -Chapter 5 - **V-POV**

And finally we have a chapter from Vegeta's POV. Covers basically a lot of what we've already read, but you know...from _his_ view of things.

* * *

1,992...

1,993...

1,994...

I grunt each time I lower myself to the floor before pushing myself back up again. I'm almost at 2,000, the end of my morning pushups. It briefly crosses my mind that maybe I should up it to 3,000, but I quickly dismiss it. The thought has come to me almost everyday for the past month, but I always manage to squelch it with a simple question.

Why?

What's the point anymore? I have no need to become stronger. What, with Frieza gone, my sole purpose in LIFE is gone. Taken from me by a lowly third-class baka who knows nothing of the reasons the bastard had to die. Hell, he can't even say he did it to avenge his RACE. If he dared to say that, I'd have to blast him into the next dimension, the reason being he knows nothing about his own race either.

Kakarot.

I hate him. I hate him with a passion so deep, it astounds even me. Just the mere THOUGHT of his name angers me and I growl, moving quickly to finish my pushups.

1,995...

1,996...

1,997...

In an attempt to clear the image of that baka from my head, I try thinking of something else. Anything else. Of course, the first thing that comes to me is no better than the last.

That blue-haired woman.

What a bother SHE is. I admit, I AM grateful to her for allowing me to stay at her home. Otherwise, I would have nowhere to go. That's another thought that has plagued my mind for a while. I cannot stay here forever. After the androids, where will I go? I can't return to purging planets, as it is a thing of the past that was done only under Frieza's order. And I have too many enemies in the universe to try and live just anywhere. Shaking my head, I decide that I'll think about that later. I have three years after all. Or, closer to two and a half now, I guess. I've lost track of the time. I spend my days and most nights training none stop. Though lately, I've been slacking off in my night training. I can't seem to find the motivation for it anymore. And I'm positive the woman has something to do with it.

She is a constant reminder that I'm stuck on this lousy planet. And I'm in her debt. She has housed me, clothed me, and fed me. She provides me with training supplies that none of the other idiots have. And the thing is, she doesn't have to. I never threatened her for any of it, unlike on other planets in my past when I wanted to stay somewhere. Because of that, I have this feeling that I...owe her. And I hate it. I keep telling myself that I'm training to stop the androids, which is repayment enough, but I know that's not true. She would survive anyway. I'm the one that's to die. So in a roundabout way, I'm using all her facilities only to help myself. I'm trying to get stronger so I will survive. That thought again leads me back to the thought of how pointless my training has become. Kakarot, the bastard, has already reached the next level, something that I cannot seem to attain no matter how hard I try. I'm supposed to die anyway, so what if it's inevitable? What if fate, not that I believe in fate, has decided that I will die in three years time no matter what? If that is so, then I know my last thought would be how pointless my training was to begin with.

1,998...

1,999...

2,000...

Of course, it also comes back to me that I have nothing to live for anyway. The only reason I strived to stay alive when I was younger was to defeat that lizard, and now even that has been done for me.

I hate Kakarot.

Then again...Kakarot didn't kill him. That blasted CHILD from the future did! Yet another reminder of what others have accomplished that I cannot. HE was a Super Saiyan too. That doesn't lessen my anger at Kakarot at all though. The stupid baka that everyone loves and adores for reasons I cannot comprehend. It's HIS fault, after all, that the androids are going to be attacking us in three years. He didn't finish the job and kill Dr. Gero.

Weakling.

He let Frieza live too! I lower myself to the ground one last time and just lie there as the thought comes to me. What HAS he accomplished? Piccolo defeated Radditz because Kakarot was too weak-hearted to do so when he had the chance. He didn't defeat Frieza, it's his fault the androids are coming...what do the others see in him! I shake my head slightly and roll over onto my back to stare at the ceiling. I will most likely stay in this position for several hours to come. It's become a habit. Instead of becoming stronger, I'm getting weaker because of this damn circle of thoughts that keep coming to me.

I'm supposed to die anyway, so why train?

Even if I did train, it might be fate that I lose, so why train?

I have nowhere to go after the battle, and no wish to do anything, so why live on, why train?

I could say I still have to avenge my race, but that has already been done, so what's the point of living? Which, of course, brings me back to the ultimate question, why train?

I still need to become a Super Saiyan to defeat Kakarot, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to reach the breaking point...what's the point anymore?

Which once again, brings me back to Kakarot. Damn him. I DON'T understand why he is so loved!

...No, I'm not jealous, not at all. Just...confused. With everything. But mainly...with my purpose in this life. Nothing good has come of it. I was to be king, but my entire race has been reduced to the prince, and stupid third-class who can't remember anything about us anyway. Oh, and of course his half-breed brat. A huge disgrace, mixing our blood like that. I might have been born to rid the universe of Frieza...but apparently not. I'm obviously not needed to fight the androids, since I died anyway.

Damn it.

DAMN IT ALL!

Before I know it, I'm on my feet and my energy is swirling around, cackling with lightening every so often. I can feel my power level rising to its peak, as far as I can make it go. I know right then, that I'm gong to try again. I'm going to try to go the entire way. If I can, maybe it'll be the answer to all my questions. If I can get myself to go Super, then I might just be able to find my purpose in this life! In my fury and rage, a huge roar emits itself from my throat. I continue screaming until I can no longer breathe, my energy flaring dangerously around me. My power's at a height I've never reached before. I'm almost there! I think...I think that I might actually break this time. I'm just at the barrier, I can tell! Just a little more...

_BAM!_

In an instant, my power leaves me and I fall to my knees breathing heavily. I couldn't sustain it. Damn it. I punch the ground, a gasping breath coming from my lips. Fucking DAMN IT. Repeatedly my fists hit the ground, as if doing so I'll hit a button that will transform me. The sweat drips off my face and onto my hands as they slow in their pounding. Except, there's too much of the salty liquid for it to be just sweat. My eyes are burning, and immediately I know what it is.

FUCK!

Great, now I'm fucking CRYING! What the hell is happening to me! I've been reduced to a sniveling weakling! How could I have let myself be reduced to this? I should have been training this entire time, not pitying myself! Yet...not matter how much I yell at myself, I can't work up the energy. I know that I won't train, and it angers me yet again. It's never ending...

My stomach growls, but I ignore its pleas. I can't remember the last time I ate a decent meal. Food doesn't seem important to me anymore, just like everything else in the whole God-damned world. I'm sure that it's showing too. I've been avoiding the woman because of that. She constantly worries about me, and it annoys the hell out of me. And it makes me feel...I'll admit, slightly nervous. I don't know WHY she cares, and it bothers me. What good thing have I ever done for her? I constantly give her empty threats that she knows I will never follow through with. She appears to trust me, and I don't know why. She's yet another thing in this world that confuses me.

The list just seems to be getting longer, doesn't it?

I hate being confused.

& & & &

(A/N: Be prepared. When the chapters are from Vegeta's POV, scenes from Bulma's POV WILL be repeated occasionally.)

Eventually, night begins to fall, and I feel that I can leave the gravity chamber. I try to stay in here all day so I don't make anyone suspicious, but I know damn well that it's not working. I notice immediately that the woman is on her patio, but I pointedly ignore her as she stares at me. Somewhere inside of me, I find the energy needed to fly the short distance to my own balcony. It worries me a little that I find that so difficult to do, but what would you expect after not giving your body anything to get energy from? I quickly pushed the thought aside as I noticed that the woman was still staring at me.

"What are staring at?" I asked. I get the feeling that she WANTED me to talk as I noticed her perk up. She's so annoying.

"I was just wondering where you were going. Its pretty early for you to be done training." I blinked. Damn, she did notice I hadn't been training at night.

"I'm not going anywhere," I replied lamely. She looked doubtful, but accepted my answer.

"Really? Do you want some dinner then? You haven't been eating too well lately." Kami, she noticed that too? What, was she a stalker in her spare time? Before I could reply, I noticed her eyes widen. Shit...she looked worried...again. Stupid, baka woman. "Vegeta, are you ok?" she asked. Yep, there it was. She was worrying again. And I was fed up with it.

"Why do you care?" I blinked. I hadn't actually meant to ask that. But, I guess I really did want to know. Bul- er, the woman stood up suddenly and turned to face me.

"Vegeta, what's wrong? You're really starting to worry me." Ok, she just completely avoided the question. Well, she wasn't going to get off THAT easily. If she was going to ignore my question, then I would ignore hers.

"Why. Do. You. Care?" I repeated, sounding more urgent than I'd intended to. She blinked at me.

"I just...do, Vegeta," she replied after a while. Oh yay, that was EVER so helpful. Thank you, Bulma. "I...I don't know WHY. You live here, so I should care what happens to you," she continued on.

"You care now, but only a few months ago, you wouldn't have given a damn. Am I right?" I asked, crossing my arms. As long as we were talking, I wanted answers.

"Well of course." Ok, it sort of stung the way she said that, but I ignored it. How could she worry about me now, but then she didn't give a damn? I hadn't changed at all! At least, I didn't think I had. I voiced this out loud, but she just snorted at me. Interesting sound, coming from her. I ignored it though, and insisted that I HADN'T changed. Of course, she decided to try and prove me wrong.

"You're talking to me. Goku's still alive and you aren't at his house threatening to kill him. You keep insisting that you're training so you'll be strong enough to defeat the androids, which means you will be working with us. You've changed Vegeta." And it worked. Damn.

"I guess I have," I admitted. "This fucking mud ball of a planet has been wearing off on me," I continued on, more to myself than to her. Then, out of nowhere, she asked the most bizarre question.

"So, where have you been for these past three months?" I blinked. What the hell? What type of moron was she?

"Here," I replied, causing her to roll her eyes at me.

"At NIGHT," she said. Yeah...the answer was definitely still the same. What was she getting at?

"HERE," I repeated.

"...Seriously?" Stupid, baka onna...

"uh-huh."

"...oh," And you wonder why she confuses me. With a slight shake of my head, I continued on to my room, but her voice stopped me. "Hey Vegeta!" she yelled. I stopped and glanced back at her. "Are you sure you're not hungry?" It took an incredible amount of effort to make my stomach NOT growl, but it worked.

"Positive," I answered, leaving before she could say anything else. I vaguely realized that that was the first real conversation we'd had in months. But if I thought that was the last I'd see of her for a while, boy was I wrong.

As it got dark out, I left my room again and flew silently up to the roof. This place was my sanctuary. As far as I knew, no one else came up here, so I could be completely alone. I don't know why I felt the need to be alone with thoughts. They could only plague me more, after all. I guess I liked looking at the stars or something. I'd been to quite a few of them in my life, and caused quite a few others to disappear. Of course, it didn't really matter to me. I shifted my gaze to a particular spot in the sky. If I was right, that was where Vegetasei used to be. I could tell because of the arrangement of the stars around the gaping black space. I don't know why I like staring at that spot. It was only another reminder of the whole "I'm the only one left of my race/I couldn't avenge my race/why should I train?" thing. I was so lost in my thoughts, that I didn't notice a certain blue head pop up over the edge of the roof. She just couldn't leave me alone, could she? But...she had food with her. And I was starving. In the span of a minute, everything she had brought up with her was gone, and we sat in fairly comfortable silence. I admit, I didn't mind being with her when she was silent. Of course, then she had to start talking.

I didn't mean to start ranting at her. Honestly. But the way she acted around me just set me off. Come on, I know I don't apologize much, but it wasn't as if the word has never left my mouth. She made such a big fucking deal about it. And then she tried to get me talking about my past...which for some reason didn't bother me. I was sort of...grateful that at least SOMEONE was interested in what I went through. Not that I would EVER tell her the horrors I had lived. She wouldn't be able to handle it. Of that, I'm positive. I don't care how fiery she may be. I could talk about Vegetasei though, and I found myself wanting to tell her about it. But...that would ruin my image, talking openly. Or it would allow her to think that I ENJOYED talking to her, and I couldn't have that either. She was a big enough distraction already; I didn't need her trying to have friendly conversations with my every time I stepped out of the gravity chamber. As it was, she knew that I liked my privacy, and for the most part she let me have it. So I told her small facts about my past. Little, insignificant things. Things I hardly even remembered. I also learned from her that she'd broken up with that fool, Yamcha. About time, I think. But then...then she asked why I tensed up all the time. The tensing up is an involuntary thing. I told her "training was harsh," and that wasn't a lie. From my experience, if someone was close enough to touch you, they were close enough to hurt you. And that happened quite often to me in my youth. Even when I know it's just the woman, I can't help it. For all I know, she could have a dagger that she's planning on stabbing me with. On a more embarrassing note, if someone's close enough to touch me, then it's possible they could find out one of my main weaknesses other than my tail.

As much as I hate to say it, I'm...ticklish. Imagine what mayhem THAT could cause. "The great Saiyan no Ouji died of suffocation yesterday. He was being tickled by his enemy and couldn't breathe any longer." Bah. Wouldn't that be wonderful.

Somehow, all my ranting out loud seemed to help. The woman somehow managed to twist my mind around, back to the way I used to think. Hearing all of my problems aloud let me realize how...childish I was being. It disgusted me, honestly. I'd wasted a good three months moping. What a disgrace. And I was supposed to be the Saiyan no Ouji. Huh, right. So, I don't know how she did it, but she persuaded me to train again. Train...and eat. Kami, was I hungry. I admitted that willingly when she asked. If I was going to go back to normal, I might as well do it completely.

"You hungry?" she asked, and that time I allowed my stomach to growl as I admitted sheepishly that I was. She said she'd fix me something, and we headed toward her kitchen, where we had one our most interesting conversations thus far.

"Hey Vegeta?" she said hesitantly, causing me to glance up from my food. She paused for a minute before asking, "Do...do you think you'll ever settle down?" I raised an eyebrow. Settle down? What the hell was THAT supposed to mean?

"Settle down?"

"Yeah, you know, and start a family?" Oh, family, right...um, how about, hell no!

"Dunno," I said instead, swallowing. "I never really thought about it. If I ever do, it won't be anytime soon because of the androids, and it won't be on this planet." She frowned at me.

"Why not?" I shrugged again. What did she want me to say?

"The women here are too pathetic. Strength wise," I added quickly when she opened her mouth. I wasn't in the mood for an argument, though we hadn't had one in a while. "They might get hurt or something," I muttered, smirking. She snorted.

"Excuse me?" she asked. "Chichi had Gohan," she pointed out. Ha, THAT was an easy one to answer.

"Yes, well, Kakarot was a lot weaker then, and his mate is one of the strongest women on the planet, is she not? And I noticed they only have the ONE brat."

"I...well...ok fine. That's true. But still!" Vegeta: one. Bulma: zero. Hehehe.

"Why do you ask?" I finally inquired, the curiosity getting to me. She paused and seemed to think something over before answering me.

"I was just thinking a about that guy from future," she said, picking up my plate and heading towards the sink. Okaaay, THAT didn't help me any.

"What about him?" I asked.

"When he came to tell us about the androids, you said he was lying about being a Saiyan. But just a little while ago, when we were outside, you said he DID go Super Saiyan." Damn, she caught that. I shrugged. Oh well.

"He did," I grumbled. "But what does that matter?"

"Well...he came from the future, but he hasn't been born yet here. And he's not Goku's son, that was pretty obvious, so..." She raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders, looking clueless. I blinked. What the hell? Who gives a damn?

"What does it matter if he's not Kakarrot's son? What're you-" I paused, suddenly understanding what she was getting at. No. No way in HELL. "Do you think he's...MY son?" I asked, my eyes widening slightly despite myself. She nodded slowly, and I let out some sort of grunt. Damn. No, it wasn't possible! Except for the fact that...it was entirely possible. Shit. "I hadn't thought about it... I suppose it's...possible," I said slowly, trying not to show any emotion. I sat there for a few minutes, and then quickly pushed myself away from the table and headed out of the kitchen. When she called after me to see what I was doing, I simply told her I was going to bed. What business was it of hers?

I lied on my bed for a long time that night, just staring at the ceiling. I didn't WANT a son, I knew that for sure. But that could be avoided easily. Just...don't have sex for three years, right? Not a problem. I wasn't exactly planning on doing that anyway. With that plan in mind, I finally let my eyes drift close. Truth be told, I was exhausted. I hadn't slept well it months. Tomorrow I'd be going back to my old routine. Of that, I was positive. The reason I was so sure of myself, was because I was actually looking forward to it.

* * *

More plot actually happens in the next chapter, hehe.

-Maxine


	6. Chapter 6

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 6 - **B-POV**

Bulma's POV again!

* * *

"Damn it, Vegeta! I told you not to train so hard!"

"I wasn't! This lousy machine of yours can hardly handle HALF of my energy. How am I supposed to train when it keeps breaking down!" I sighed in defeat. As much as I hated to admit, he was probably right. Hardly a week after he'd started training seriously again, Vegeta had caused the control panel in the gravity room to overcharge twice already. Not only was it extremely annoying, but it made my work look bad. "At least I haven't blown it up yet," Vegeta continued haughtily. Well, that was true.

"Well, just give me a few minutes. This type of thing really isn't that hard to fix." And it wasn't. All that had happened was that his energy had overloaded the circuitry in the panel, causing it to short-circuit. All you had to do was reconnect a few wires and such. No problem. I began working on it, and in case you didn't know, I get really into whatever I'm doing, and kind of forget about everything else around me. Well, that happened again as I completely focused on the wires I was working with, but I gradually became aware of a presence really close to me, and paused. Glancing over my shoulder, I was startled to see Vegeta standing right there, closely watching what I was doing. Dude, when had he gotten so near to me? "Um, do you mind not standing so close like that?" I asked, jabbing him lightly in the chest with a wrench. "It's hard to concentrate when someone's staring over your shoulder" He blinked and stepped back slightly.

"Well, I figured that if I watched what you were doing, then next time you wouldn't have to 'waste your time' fixing it. Besides, it's a waste of my time to have to go get you so you can do it," he said, crossing his arms. He spoke with that "I have another great idea" attitude, and his look was something close to "you know I'm right because I'm always right." And damn it, he WAS right. If he could learn to fix the gravity machine, then I wouldn't have to do it anymore. Still...

"You think that YOU could fix this?" I asked incredulously. He scowled at me.

"Well not right NOW," he said as if the answer was obvious. "But if I WATCH then I should be able to figure it out." I considered for a few minutes, and then gave in.

"Fine, just don't bother me or anything," I said, turning back to the control panel. The fact that he was standing so close to me I could deal with. Even though I could feel his hot breath on my neck and he was sort of leaning into me unconsciously while peering over my shoulder, I was ok. I sort of got a little nervous though, with his eyes watching my every move, and my hands started trembling a little. Still, I could deal. It wasn't that big of a problem. But when he started sniffing me, yeah, SNIFFING, I lost it. Well, not right away, because I could tell he was trying to do it discreetly, but it eventually got really annoying.

"Ok, do I smell bad or something?" I finally exclaimed, turning around abruptly. He blinked and tried to look confused, but I saw right through it. "Oh don't play dumb. I could hear you sniffing me," I said, watching as he glanced away nervously. Then he crossed his arms again.

"You don't smell bad," he said, answering my first question. "Just...different. I happened to notice it." I blinked and ran a hand through my hair trying to figure out what he meant. Then something hit me.

"Were you smelling my hair?" I asked.

"Hai."

"Oh! I started using a new brand of shampoo a couple days ago," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "Does it smell bad or something?" Vegeta cocked his head to the right a little.

"...No," he answered. I narrowed my eyes.

"Well does it smell good?" Come on, I couldn't go around using shampoo that smelled funny! Vegeta shrugged, and then with an abrupt subject change, he pointed to the panel behind me.

"Were you going to finish?" he asked gruffly. "The androids will be here soon and I can't even go Super Saiyan yet." I rolled my eyes.

"We still have like, two and half years, Vegeta." But I turned around and continued anyway. By the time I'd finished, Vegeta had gotten bored with watching me and was off in the corner playing martial arts with his shadow or something. Go figure. I knew he wouldn't stick around to see how it was done. That just meant that I'D have to fix it again if it broke. Damn. "I'm done, Vegeta," I said on my way out. "Just hold out for another week or so until my dad gets back, and we'll upgrade it for you, ok?" He grunted. I watched him for a few seconds, waiting to see if he might mutter his thanks or something, but I got nothing. I didn't think I would. "You could say thank you or something you know," I said testily. Vegeta threw one more punch, and then turned to me. He smirked.

"Why? It's your fault the damn thing can't handle my power." I growled.

"Well I can't help it that you're so freakin' strong!" I yelled, and then instantly regretted it. Kami, like Vegeta needed another ego boost. His smirk widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but I spoke before he could. "Why do you think I never let Goku use this thing?" I walked casually out of the room, ignoring Vegeta's angry sputtering. "By the way, we're ordering in tonight!" I called out as the door slid shut behind me. I heard a muffled "WOMAN!" from inside, and laughed. Vegeta's so easy to piss off.

& & & &

Living with Vegeta that first year was interesting. Sure he'd stayed at Capsule Corp. for almost six months while waiting for the Namekian dragon balls to be reactivated, but he was in his room 24/7. Seriously. We had to bring him his meals, and back then he didn't train in the gravity room. I think he was trying to avoid all the Nameks. But anyway, what I'm saying is that he was totally confused over the season changes. Apparently Vegetasei didn't have such profound seasons. Basically it was a mix between summer and fall, without all the color-changing trees. When he'd stayed with us before, it was during the fall and winter, but we had an extremely warm winter that year. We got virtually no snow, just rain. It was pretty lousy. We were supposed to get a lot of snow this year though, and I couldn't wait. Fall and winter are my favorite seasons for many reasons. There are a lot of trees on our property, so fall is absolutely beautiful when they all change colors, and I've always loved snow during the winter. Plus, there are quite a few holidays and all.

Sometime in October, I think, when everything was beginning to change, I was taking a walk through the woods on our property. It was starting to get dark, though it wasn't even eight yet. When I came into view of the main buildings again, one of the first things I noticed was that the gravity room was off. I've become very good at picking out that sound. Anyway, I glanced over at it, and saw Vegeta standing in the doorway glancing around warily. He was only in his training shorts, and had a towel draped around his shoulders. He had to have been cold, because I was all bundled up in my coat and I could still feel the cold wind biting at me. It was unusual for it to be so cold already, but like I said, that winter called for a lot of snow. I walked over to him to see what he was doing, and stopped a few feet in front of him. His eyes snapped to me suddenly, and he took in what I was wearing.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked, rubbing my hands together. I think my teeth were beginning to chatter.

"No, not really," Vegeta answered. He glanced back up at the trees. "What's going on?" he asked. I blinked. At the time, I didn't know he had no clue about the different seasons and all.

"What do you mean?"

"The trees," he said, pointing at them. "Why are they changing colors?" I brushed my hair back from my eyes, and glanced upwards.

"It's fall, they always change colors." Vegeta lowered his hand slowly.

"Fall?"

"...Yeah. Autumn. You know..." I couldn't think how to describe it in simple terms. "The leaves change colors, they fall off the trees, then in snows..." I trailed off. At that moment, a big gust of wind came, blowing some leaves off a tree near us. Vegeta snatched one out of the air and looked at it.

"They ALL fall off?" I giggled then; he looked so cute, staring all confused-like at the orange and red leaf. It was funny. Of course, HE didn't think so. "What's so funny?" he demanded. I managed to squelch my laughter, and cleared my throat.

"Uh, yeah, they all fall off," I said, skirting around the other question. He ignored it.

"What's snow?" My jaw dropped.

"What's SNOW?" I exclaimed incredulously. "You've never seen snow before?" Vegeta just shook his head. "Weren't there different seasons on Vegetasei?"

"No. It was pretty much the same all year round, and there weren't many trees," he answered. I smiled brightly.

"Then you're going to love it here this year!" I said happily. I couldn't help it, I was excited for him.

"I was here LAST year at this time," he reminded me. "I don't remember anything special happening."

"Yeah, well, last year was a fairly warm winter." Just then another gust of wind came, and I caught Vegeta shudder a little. "Oh, come on!" I said, grabbing his hand. I dragged him towards the house. "You're gonna get sick if you stay out here dressed in that. You might want to start dressing more warmly now, because it's going to get really cold and-"

"Woman!" Vegeta growled, yanking his hand out of mine. "I don't get sick. I never have before, and I won't now." I huffed, but didn't dare argue. If that's what he wanted to believe, then fine. I turned away and walked into the kitchen. Vegeta followed me, and happened to glance over at the clock in the room. He did a double take. "It's only 7:30?" he asked. I watched him walk over to the window to stare out into the already dark night, and smiled a little. He's just like a little kid sometimes, I swear.

& & & &

Ok, I know what you're thinking. Back there, when I said he was cute, and now I'm saying he's like a little kid. You shouldn't be surprised though, because you already know we end up together, right? But yeah, it's true. I was falling for Vegeta, and I knew it. It was extremely hard for me to admit it to myself, but I grudgingly did after a while. I don't know what it was about him. He's like a giant mystery. Big and tough on the outside, clueless on the inside. Sometimes he can be...somewhat civil, but most of the time he just gets on your nerves. And he's got an awesome body; all he needs is a personality adjustment. But then again, if he acted any different, he wouldn't be Vegeta. Gah, now I'm getting all mushy. Bleh. Anyhoo, when I came to this realization that I had a...I don't want to say crush, so...a THING for Vegeta, I decided that I wasn't going to a damn thing about it. That's right, nothing. There was no way I was going to risk being made a fool out of if I did something and he totally rejected me. No way in hell. If he ever started to care about me, then he could take the initiative and come to me. Huh, riiiiight. Like he would ever care about me THAT way. The more I started to like him, the more edgy he got around me. It was strange.

As the months rolled on into December and all, the snow came that I had so been looking forward to. Vegeta's reaction to it was pretty funny, lemme tell ya. He'd been training, duh, as usual. I was outside raking up the last of the leaves that had fallen. I usually don't, but I was bored, and there was such a small amount that it didn't really bother me. Plus, I've always enjoyed jumping into the piles. Who doesn't? I'd had some of the younger Nameks doing it with me last year, and before that it was always Yamcha, Goku, or my parents. I have good memories of that; of course most of my memories with Goku are good ones. Vegeta caught me jumping in a pile one time, and though it didn't really bother me, he thought it was the strangest thing in the world. He'd walked off mumbling about stupid human customs. But this day, the little pile of leaves was too small to jump into, and it was sort of like a final signal that fall was over. In fact, not two seconds after I thought that, it started snowing. Well, not SNOWing, more like FLURRYing. Whatever it was, I was excited as hell. Despite the cold, I began dancing around trying to catch the small snowflakes on my tongue. I was so preoccupied that I actually didn't hear the gravity machine turn off for once. Imagine my surprise, and extreme embarrassment, when I twirled smack into Vegeta, who had been on his way inside but stopped to watch me. I was glad for the cold then, because I don't think he noticed my already red face flush even more.

"Uh...h-hey Vegeta. What's up?" I asked, trying to make it look like dancing in the snow was normal.

"Is this was I missed last time in your little human ritual? You rake the leaves, dance around them, and THEN jump into them?" Vegeta asked sarcastically. I rolled my eyes.

"It's not a ritual, Vegeta."

"So what, pray tell, were you doing? Besides trying to look like an idiot, which by the way, you were doing a very good job of." Ooh, the first thing he'd ever told me I was "very good" at, and it was looking like an idiot. Go me.

"I was just excited, that's all," I snapped, losing my patience. He raised an eyebrow.

"About what?" I didn't answer, just pointed up. He followed my finger, and for the first time noticed the little white specks that were falling harder by the minute. His eyes widened a little. "What the..."

"Snow," I said, looking at his bewildered expression. "THAT is what snow is." He glanced down and watched as the snowflakes melted as soon as they landed on his bare arms. Yeah, BARE arms. Stupid baka wasn't wearing a shirt. At least he had sweat pants on though. I pulled off one of my gloves and ran my hand through my hair. It was damp because of the snow, and I was started to get really cold. "I'm going inside," I said, turning towards the house. Vegeta followed me quietly, still looking all around as the snow began to stick to the ground. "You want some hot chocolate?" I asked, peeling off my jacket and throwing it over the back of the chair. He nodded, shivered slightly because his skin was still damp, and sat down in one of the chairs at the table. I smirked. I'd gotten him hooked on the stuff (hot chocolate) after it'd started getting cold out. He never asked for any, but it's the one thing he'll never refuse if you offer it. I set a mug down in front of him and sat down in the seat across from him. He was still looking out the window.

"How long does this last?" Vegeta asked abruptly.

"Does what last?" I asked, sipping my hot chocolate.

"This weather," he replied, picking up his own mug. He downed the drink in like two gulps. "Make me some m-"

"Yeah yeah," I said, picking up the cup before he could finish speaking. I'd been expecting that. "It'll be cold like this for almost four more months or so." Vegeta glanced at me sharply.

"Four months?"

"Yep." I gave him the refilled cup, and he grunted. I guess that was supposed to mean thanks or something.

"It didn't get cold on Vegetasei," Vegeta grumbled, sipping his drink this time.

"Really?" I asked. It wasn't too often that he actually spoke of his home planet.

"No, it was fairly warm all year round." He shivered again.

"Well then why don't you go put a sweatshirt on or something," I suggested.

"I wasn't implying that I was cold; I haven't been on Vegetasei since I was five. The temperature here doesn't bother me."

"But you're shivering," I pointed out, frowning.

"I'm fine woman!" Vegeta growled, pushing his now empty mug away from him. Man, I was still working on my first. I glanced out the window and continued sipping. I knew what was coming next: some comment telling me to stop worrying about him. "I don't need you worrying about me!" I smirked. See? "It only-ah-AH-AHHCHOO!" I swung my head away from the window to stare at Vegeta in shock. He'd just sneezed! I don't think I'd ever heard him do that before. His hand was covering his mouth, and his eyes were wide with this puzzled look in them.

"Don't get sick, do you?" I said sarcastically. Vegeta pulled his hand away from his mouth and growled.

"I sneezed, woman. That doesn't mean anything. It was probably dust or something. Kami knows how often you clean this place."

"It's cleaned everyday, Vegeta," I snapped. That man really knows how to set you off. He shrugged.

"Not by you."

"Well it's still cleaned."

"I'm hungry, woman." I opened my mouth to retort, but then realized he'd totally changed the subject again. I hate it when he does that!

"My mom's cooking tonight," I said after a short pause. Vegeta nodded and left the room, leaving me to pick up his cup. He can't even take two steps and put in the sink. I swear, I don't know what I see in him sometimes...

The next morning, I was up earlier than usual, eager to see how much it had snowed. Turned out we had almost eight inches on the ground, and it was still coming down lightly. I totally skipped breakfast and got dressed in record time, rushing out the door decked out in my snow gear. It wasn't even THAT early, but I noticed that Vegeta was still asleep. Either that, or he wasn't training yet, which I doubted. When he finally did grace us with his presence, I was halfway done building a snowman in the front yard. Vegeta just kind of stood in the doorway, staring at everything. When I glanced back at him a few minutes later, he was STILL looking at everything.

"Hey Vegeta!" I called out to him. No response. I went over to stand in front of him, and he still didn't notice me. "Um...helloooo?" I waved a hand in front of his face, and his gaze suddenly focused on me.

"Is this the...SNOW that you spoke of?" he asked. I smirked.

"It sure is."

"What is it?" Oh Kami, I don't know why, but the way he asked that question, with that same deadpan expression, and the fact that it's such a trivial thing, I couldn't help snickering a little. I mean, it wasn't HIS fault he'd never seen snow before, but still...

"It's...it's frozen water," I said through my laughter. He raised an eyebrow.

"Is it? Like ice? Because it certainly doesn't look like it."

"Well, it's like CRUSHED ice, I guess." Vegeta scooped a little bit from off the railing, and stared at it as it began to melt in his hand. "See? It melts into water," I pointed out. He nodded after second, and dried his hands off on his pants, which was when I noticed what he was wearing - black Adidas (A/N: don't own 'em) pants with the white stripes down the sides, and a white wife-beater, yeah, the little tank top things? Oh well, at least it was a shirt.

"What the hell is that?" Vegeta asked suddenly, pointing to my halfway done snowman in the front yard. I blushed a little.

"Oh, ah, that's a, um...snowman..." I mumbled. This time he snickered at me.

"A snowman? It looks more like a big lump of snow than a man to me."

"Well I wasn't finished yet," I said indignantly. Then an idea occurred to me. Not a very good one, mind you, but an idea nonetheless. "Wanna help me finish it?" He looked at me like I'd turned Super Saiyan on him.

"Heh, yeah right." I crossed my arms and glared at him.

"Fine, be that way." I turned around and began stomping back to my snowman, but abruptly turned back to Vegeta. He looked like he was trying to find a way to get to the gravity room without stepping in the snow. He could have easily flown though, so I might have been wrong. "Hey, Vegeta!" I called. He glanced over at me. "Open the closet right in the doorway real fast, will ya?" He gave me this look that said, "why should I," but did so anyway. He stuck his head back outside again.

"What did you want?"

"There should be some gray sweatshirts in there. The type that have hoods and zip up." Vegeta disappeared again, and then re-emerged with a sweatshirt in hand. "Good, now put it on!" He blinked, and then glared at me.

"Woman, I do not need a sweatshirt! I am not cold! STOP WORRYING ABOUT ME!" he bellowed. I just smiled sweetly at him.

"Put the damn sweatshirt on, Vegeta, and then take it off when you get to the gravity chamber," I said through clenched teeth. "You can keep the sweatshirt, you'll be needing it. And no flying or powering up outside when there's snow on the ground!" I added as an afterthought. "I don't want it all to melt and turn my yard into a giant mud hole!" I turned away again before Vegeta could yell back at me, and out of the corner of my eye saw him shrug the sweatshirt on and stomp off to the gravity room. Even from where I stood, I could hear him grumbling about "baka earth women." It made me smirk, and I began working on my snowman again. Maybe I could get Yamcha to come by and help later. At least he'd be decent company... Oh yeah! I heard one last thing as the gravity room's door slid shut: Vegeta sneezing again. Stupid saiyan.

* * *

Ok, so maybe not so much plot, lol. :)

-Maxine


	7. Chapter 7

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 7 - **B-POV**

* * *

Maybe convincing Vegeta to start training again all those months ago wasn't such a good idea. Though I'm a bit relieved that he's not depressed anymore, I'm even more worried about his current state. I don't think he sleeps more than an hour at night. On the bright side, he joins us at every meal, so at least I know he's eating. Then again, he looks worse every time I see him. Being sick over the winter didn't help either. Well, I say being sick...really he barely had a cold. Of course, he refused to admit even that much of a weakness, insisting that he was fine each time I brought it up. Eventually, I gave up. What could I do? But I knew that getting no rest was NOT helping all that sneezing and sniffling he was doing. No matter, it passed for the msot part, and at least to my knowledge, without a single type of medicine or cough drop. Amazing really, because even Yamcha or Krillen would have had to rest up for a cold to pass over. But wait, Vegeta's not human...duh, how could I forget?

I sighed, picking up my slow jogging pace as the lights in the park turned on. I don't like running when it's dark, because you never know who's out there. And yes, that's right, I said running. Come on now, how do you think I stay in such good shape when I'm always eating those little cakes that my mom buys? Running is one of my favorite pastimes beside working on my inventions and reading. It allows my mind to clear and I can think about anything I want. Very stress relieving. That night, as was with almost every night, my thoughts were revolving around the Saiyan prince staying at Capsule Corp. Do you know how difficult it is to live with someone, and know absolutely NOTHING about them? Over the past couple of months, my mission involving Vegeta became less and less about finding out who the mother of his supposed child would be. In fact, it had all but disappeared from my mind. I was more concerned about the prince himself. In a sense, I wanted to become his...friend. Or as much of friend as he would allow me to be. I wanted to gain his trust for one. But, as I said, it's hard to be friends with someone when you don't know much about their past.

I walked into the kitchen, panting slightly from my run and shivering. It was warming up again as we entered spring, therefore we'd turned on the air conditioning and it was a big contrast from the hazy afternoon heat I'd just been running in. And since I was wearing nothing but spandex that went to mid-calf and a sports bra, the cold air against my damp skin only enhanced the coolness around me. I was busy drinking a glass of water and wondering what we would be having for dinner when the person who'd been occupying my thoughts waltzed into the room. He paid no attention to me, going to directly to the refrigerator and pulling out a chicken leg left over from last night.

"We're going to be eating soon, you know," I said to him, sipping from my glass. He spared me a glance over his shoulder before tearing into the chicken as if I'd said nothing. I silently fumed, but kept my temper in check. If I was right, that was beginning to get to him because I think he liked goading a fight out of me, but I hadn't given him that satisfaction in weeks.

"Where were you?" he asked suddenly, giving my form a quick glance-over.

"Running," I replied, tugging my hair out of its hair band and allowing it to spill across my shoulders. The ponytail was too tight, I was beginning to get a headache. He raised an eyebrow.

"Running?" he replied skeptically. "Since when?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

"For your information, Vegeta, I ALWAYS run. But you're usually in the gravity chamber when I do." He smirked.

"Well, at least now I know why you never seem to gain weight with the hoards of food you consume."

"The hoards of food _I_ consume!" I exclaimed incredulously. "Look who's talking!"

"Saiyans require more food than humans, woman. We have a greater need for the energy consumption," Vegeta replied haughtily, followed by an almost inaudible sneeze, as if he was trying to hide it. I sighed.

"Vegeta, honestly, it wouldn't hurt you to take ONE day off. If you did, the remnents of that cold you had would FINALLY go away." He growled at me, the response I had been expecting. He can be so predictable in some ways.

"Woman, I do NOT have a cold. I never HAD a cold. Saiyan immune systems are too strong to get infested with some measly human disease."

"Apparently not..." I mumbled. I think he heard, judging by the way he glared at me, but he said nothing and busied himself with eating the chicken. I allowed my eyes to roam over his body as I had done so many times before. I mean, if he's going to flaunt it by wearing nothing but spandex shorts, I might as well get something out of it, right? Suddenly, an idea popped into my head... "Where'd you get all those scars, Vegeta?" I asked as innocently as I could. He nearly choked on the chicken in his mouth. Frowning, he glanced down the front of his body, and then up at me.

"I can't believe you just asked me that," he said gruffly. "I'm a warrior, remember? They're from battles, woman."

"Yeah, but SOME of them have to have an interesting story behind them," I said, placing my glass in the sink and walking over to stand in front of him. "Come on, we can trade stories."

"Trade...stories?" he muttered, eyebrow raised again. Then he snorted. "Bulma, what stories could you possibly tell me that would be of interest to me? Do you even HAVE any scars on that oh-so-perfect body of yours?" he asked sarcastically. I blinked, but ignored the fact that he had called me by my name. It happened on occasion, and I learned the first time not to go crazy about it. The time I had, he called me "woman" for two weeks straight, emphasizing the word and even going out of his way to talk to me, just to call me by it. So instead, I smirked.

"Oh, so you noticed?" I said teasingly, spreading my arms and twirling around slowly, glad for the moment that I had the spandex on, as it left little to the imagination. He snorted again and looked me over quickly, before taking another bite out of the chicken leg. "Fine...well, ah, here we go!" I pointed to a faded, inch and a half long scar on my forearm. "Climbing a tree when I was young. I slipped and scraped myself on a branch," I said proudly, knowing it was nothing compared to his. Vegeta let out a short bark of laughter, amusement shining in his eyes.

"Alright then," he said. He glanced down at himself briefly, and pointed at a long gash on his left arm. "Most of these are from various ki blasts during battle, but some I can remember specifically. This one's from Frieza's horns." He didn't say anything more about it, and I didn't bother asking. I pointed to a jagged scar on my ankle.

"Shaving," I said simply, smiling widely. He shook his head slightly, and turned around.

Looking at me over his shoulder, he said, "Any of the long, straight ones on my back are from whippings under Frieza, for being 'disobedient'." He smirked, apparently not having a problem with it. So, apparently I'd been right about that.

"Hmm...well, have you ever been told not to run with anything sharp?" I asked. He blinked, and shook his head. "Ok, well that's one of the major things parents reiterate over and over again on earth. Of course, I didn't listen to it, and one time I was running with a knife...I think I was bringing it to my mom to cut whatever we were having for dinner or something, and I tripped. It sliced me, riiiiight...here," I said, pulling down the top of my spandex a bit to show Vegeta a long scar on my lower stomach. "I had to go the hospital for that one." Vegeta smirked.

"Yay," he said flatly, twirling a finger around in the air. I laughed. He returned his arms to their crossed position, and glanced down at himself once again. There was a pause before he spoke. "This one," he pointed to a three-inch long scar on the right side of his stomach, and then turned slightly and pointed to a matching one on his back, "is from Zarbon. Frieza had ordered me to spar against him, though every time I got beaten to a bloody pulp. This time was the first time I ever got a decent punch in, and I actually broke his nose. He got so angry he impaled me with a sword." He sounded so proud of it, but I had to wince. Ugh, impaled with a SWORD? Geez... I noticed an odd one then, right in the middle of his chest.

"Where'd you get that one?" I asked quietly, reaching up and touching it lightly with my fingers. He backed away quickly, so fast that at first I wasn't sure if I'd removed my hand or he had moved. He didn't tense up though, something I was happy about. He'd gotten better with that around me, which proved that he did trust me on SOME level.

"THAT one," he spoke as quietly as me, running his own had over the circular scar, "is from when Frieza killed me...with that ki blast." I backed up half a step. Oops, I hadn't meant to get into that, but he didn't seem mad.

"What," I started, swallowing, "what was it like?" I didn't have to say what, I think he knew. He let out this dark chuckle that sent shivers down my spine.

"Woman...Bulma, as awful as I could make it sound, as gruesome as I could describe it, saying things that would give you nightmares for YEARS... it would not even BEGIN to describe what I saw in the few HOURS I was there. Not even for a whole day was I dead."

"...Oh..." I said shakily. Ouch, I didn't even WANT to know. Nevermind. We stood in a slightly uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, before I took another step back. Well, I'd gotten what I wanted...more information about his past...but still, I wanted more. "I...I guess I should go ask...ask mom when we're eating. So that you won't waste anymore time...you could be...training..." I trailed off eventually, still locked in his gaze. I felt like I couldn't move suddenly. He wasn't glaring at me for once, even though his eyebrows were drawn. Then his entire face relaxed and he smirked, though it was different than usual. There was no malice behind it. It was probably the closest he would come to a smile.

"I didn't know I was wasting time," he said simply. It was all I could do not to widen my eyes. I had the sudden urge to either go "awww" or fling myself at him and give him a huge hug. I think either would have gotten me a swift trip to another dimension. Instead, I smiled slightly.

"And I didn't know you liked talking to me." He snorted.

"I never said I liked talking to you...just that when you're not screeching at me and I can actually get a word in, it's not completely horrible."

"Right," I said, widening my smile. Then, yet another idea came to my brilliant mind. "Hey, take the day off tomorrow," I said bluntly, my smile not wavering at all when he blinked at the absurdity of that statement.

"But then when you go on your worry trips, you become intolerable," he mumbled, glancing heavenwards and sounding exasperated.

"I wasn't worrying," I said quickly, and he looked at me again. "And I wasn't referring to your cold-" I stopped that sentence quickly when he glared at me. Right, the almighty Saiyan no Ouji doesn't GET sick. "I just meant," I said slowly, "take a day off from the gravity chamber. Have a cool down day. I know this really nice place...I used to go there when I was little. There's this pond...and a field you can train in...come with me! I'll bring a ton of food!" He raised an eyebrow, but seemed to think it over.

"And what would YOU be doing?" he asked.

"It's supposed to be almost eighty degrees tomorrow, but then back in the sixties next week. I was thinking of working on my tan for the spring and summer. I'll bring a book or something, and you can have a relaxing day of training," I explained, trying not the look too hopeful. He glanced away from me for a second, and I could almost see the gears working in his head.

Giving me a level look, he said simply, "Fine." Yes! Score for Bulma! I cheered silently to myself and did a victory dance in my mind. I tried to keep my smile from getting too large.

"Good," I said. "How about we leave around...ten or so. Is that too late? You can sleep-in for a little while."

"Saiyans don't sleep-in. We don't require very much sleep." I blinked at that. Now, I knew he didn't sleep much, but that he didn't NEED to, that was new to me.

"Oh... Well, I just figured...I guess I never thought about it. I just always assumed you'd need the same amount of rest as humans, since Goku-"

"Kakarot was not brought up-"

"Right right right," I said quickly, cutting him off as he had done to me. He glowered at me. "I've heard it all before," I reminded him.

"Well, you seem to forget so easily. Anyway, if it's of interest to you, the amount of food I consume makes up for the lack of sleep. Both refill my energy supply," he said, finally tossing the chicken bone he was still holding into the trash. Well, when he said it that way, it made so much more sense. I smiled at him again.

"Well, I don't know when it happened, Vegeta," I said, bounding up to him and giving him a quick peck on the cheek, "but somewhere along the line you became a LOT easier to talk to. See you at dinner, I need a shower!" I practically skipped out of the room, leaving a confused Vegeta rubbing his cheek behind, just as my mom entered the kitchen.

"Oh, Bulma honey!" she called after me. I paused and turned to look at her. "You need to hurry if Vegeta wants to take a shower too, because his is all messed up right now."

"Huh?" I asked, wondering what in the world she could be talking about. Vegeta jerked his gaze towards my ditzy blonde mother, his eyes asking the same thing.

"Well," she continued, oblivious to our stares, "I got tired of that old green tile in all of the bathrooms, so I decided to have them redone in royal blue. Vegeta seems so fond of the color anyway, and I found these beautiful, fluffy towels and pretty wallpaper to go with-"

"Wait, mom, hold on," I cut in. "Did you say...ALL of the bathrooms?"

"Well yes, of course." She looked at me and propped her hands on her hips. "That old color was just disgusting! It looked like it was mold rather than paint. Your bathroom's already done, honey. The construction crew will be back to finish Vegeta's tomorrow, since I didn't think he'd like them in his room while he was there." Vegeta snorted at that, probably in agreement. I nodded slowly, and continued on my way.

"Be quick about it then, woman!" Vegeta yelled after me. I pause, backtracked to the door, and stuck my tongue out at him.

"Dinner will be ready by the time you're both done," my mother said, already bustling around in the kitchen. The mention of food made my stomach growl, and I quickly headed towards my room again. By the time I'd gotten there, thoughts about the following day had already taken over my mind, and I'd forgotten about the whole sharing a bathroom thing. Thus, I walked into the bathroom without anything to change into. I wasn't even done lathering my hair when someone began pounding on my door.

"Who is it?" I called through the door.

"Damn it, woman! You've been in there for ten minutes!" was the reply I got. Sighing, I answered him.

"Just hold your horses, Vegeta! I'll be out in a minute! Or five..."

"I don't want to wait that long!"

"Well you're gonna have to!"

"I wait for NOBODY!"

"Then this'll be a first for you!" And so on and so forth, accompanied by pounding on the door until the point that I thought it would break, until I finally got out of the shower. Realizing that I hadn't brought any clothes in with me, I wrapped one of the new towels that my mother had bought around me, discovering that they WERE really fluffy, and opened the door to face an irritated Vegeta with his hand raised to bang on the door again. He paused for a second, his eyes running up my form for the third time that night. I leaned against the doorframe and smirked at him. "Admiring my oh-so-perfect body?" I questioned, throwing his own words back at him. A hint of red graced his cheeks for all of a second, before he returned my smirk.

"You wish," he said, brushing past me into the bathroom, carrying a change of clothes under his arms.

"I WISH?" I asked incredulously, following him into the room and trying not to stare at his ass as he bent over to turn on the water. He adjusted it to the temperature he wanted, pointedly ignoring me, before standing up again with a shampoo bottle in his hand. He sneered down at it and replaced it, picking up another one.

"Do you have ANYTHING that would allow me to smell as if I HADN'T just walked out of a flower shop?" he asked disgustedly. I plucked the lavender scented conditioner from his hands and gave him an orange bottle instead.

"Peaches," I said, smiling at the look he gave me. "It's a fruit," I shrugged. He frowned and turned away, bringing up his hands to yank off his spandex shorts. "Aack!" I exclaimed, turning away quickly before he'd even begun to lower them. "At least wait until I get out of the room!" He smirked at me.

"Why? Embarrassed? I'm sure it's nothing you haven't seen before."

"That's not the point," I said, choosing to ignore what he said. I turned to look at him, and he stared right back, his thumbs still hooked under the hem of his shorts.

"Well?" he asked after a moment. "Were you going to leave?" Suddenly realizing the state of dress we both were in, I flushed lightly and left abruptly, shutting the door behind me. Not that it bothered me too much, since I'd been trying to get him to pay more attention to me anyway and I really had no qualms about my body, but there's a limit for everything. I didn't want to be TOO obvious. I grinned and set about finding my favorite pair of pajamas: a spaghetti-strapped light yellow t-shirt and matching drawstring pants. Very comfortable, and appealing to the eye.

I was changing in my closet since I had no idea how fast Vegeta would be when it occurred to me. If Vegeta was taking a shower now, then that meant he had to be done training for the night. I smiled slightly. He must have decided to take a little more time off than just a day. I emerged from the closet at the same time Vegeta did from the bathroom. I blinked.

"That was fast," I commented, taking in his black drawstring pants and finally chiseled chest still damp with water as I began brushing my hair. He snorted and sat on the edge of my bed, watching me watch him in the mirror.

"I smell like fruit," he grumbled, causing me to laugh outright.

"It's better than smelling sweaty and dirty."

"Maybe to you. I'd rather smell like nothing at all."

"Huh?" I asked, pausing in running the brush through my teal locks. My eyes met his in the mirror. He sighed exasperatedly.

"Must I explain EVERYTHING to you? Whatever...you do know that most of a saiyan's senses are enhanced, right?" I nodded. "Well, that includes scent. I happen to prefer a person's natural scent to all this flowery crap that you pour on." I got the feeling he was talking to me ABOUT me. I smiled. Well, out the window all my perfumes were gonna go. Maybe Chichi would like them... "What are you smiling about?" he snapped, irritated.

"Nothing, nothing at all," I replied softly. Giving my hair one last brush, I turned around to face him, holding what had used to be one of my favorite perfumes in my hand. "So, I guess you wouldn't like it if I sprayed this all over you then."

"You guessed correctly," he said, eyeing me warily.

"Oh," I said, and gave a huge fake sigh. "Too bad too, because it smells really good!" I exclaimed, pouncing on Mr. All-powerful before he had a chance to realize what I was doing. By the time he managed to pin me underneath him, he'd been successfully doused in the sexiest smelling perfume on the market. He wrenched the bottle from my hand and sniffed it, gagging at the too-powerful smell.

"Bulma, TELL me you did NOT just spray this on me," he said, looking dead serious.

"And if I did?" I said, sniffing haughtily at him.

"Then you would have to be punished," he stated matter-of-factly. My eyes widened as his smirking face was suddenly an inch in front of mine. They widened even more when he picked up my foot.

"NO! Vegeta, don't you DARE! STOP! Let me go!" I cried, trying desperately to get out of his grasp. I paused when nothing happened, and brought my eyes up to meet his. He was staring at me...in confusion? Or fear... something, anyway, that I wasn't used to seeing in those ebony depths. I could feel his warm breath against my mouth, and each time I drew in a breath my chest would arch up to meet his. Against my will, my eyes became half-lidded. I couldn't believe what I was about to do. Hadn't I promised myself that I WOULDN'T take the initiative? At that moment, I didn't care. Vegeta's hand released my foot and came up to brace himself so he wouldn't be lying fully on top of me. His other hand still had both my hands pinned above my head. I don't if I moved forward or he did, but suddenly we were only millimeters away when my mother's voice floated up to us-

"Bulma! Vegeta! Dinner's ready!"

-and both of our stomachs growled in unison. I chuckled, as my hands were suddenly free from their bounds, and I let my head fall back against the bed. We had been SO close...

"Are you coming?" a gruff voice asked, and I looked up sharply to see Vegeta waiting by the door. Oh, so he HADN'T fled when my mother interrupted us. Perhaps there was something there after all. I smiled and nodded, rising from the bed. He said nothing about what had almost happened, probably opting to forget about it, so I didn't mention it either. I followed him into the dining room where my parents were already waiting behind the huge load of food that graced the table. We were just about to eat, when my mother decided to speak up.

"Oh, what is that LOVELY smell? Bulma dear, is that one of your new perfumes? It smells absolutely ravishing! Do you think I could borrow it sometime? It's WONDERFUL!" Vegeta promptly growled, at me or just in general I don't know, while I laughed.

"Mom, you can HAVE it," I said in between laughter. "I don't think I'll be wearing perfume too much anymore anyway." I ignored my mom's thrilled outburst and Vegeta's sudden curious gaze directed my way, and continued eating.

* * *

Um...nothing to say this time, lol. :)

-Maxine


	8. Chapter 8

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 8 - **B-POV**

* * *

I awoke the next morning to a dull pain on my lower back, opening my eyes just in time to see the ground rush up to meet my face.

Ouch.

Rubbing my nose, I blinked wearily, trying to figure out exactly where I was. The carpet in MY room wasn't this color... Gradually the sleepiness left and I realized that I was on the floor in my living room and the T.V. was still on. The noise was too much of a distraction for my still slow-processing mind, so I blindly searched around for the remote on the top of the coffee table and clicked the power off when I found it. Suddenly I realized WHY I was in the living room. I'd been watching some action movie with Vegeta the night before, since that was the ONLY thing he would watch on that "stupid box." I must have fallen asleep on the couch. But...I remembered Vegeta still being there as I dozed off... He must have left me there! Why that lousy, good-for-nothing...ARGH! If it had been anyone ELSE, say, Yamcha for example, they would have carried me to my room. Not that I expected Vegeta to do that, but he could have AT LEAST woken me up or something!

Silently fuming and grumbling to myself, I stood up and began to make my way to the kitchen for some coffee-

-only to stop short when I noticed Vegeta's still-sleeping form lying on the couch.

Wait... Thoroughly confused, I could only cock my head slightly and stare at him, blinking in wonderment at how relaxed he looked just then. Last time I saw him sleeping was back when he had blown up the gravity room, and he'd been plagued by nightmares that night, so I'd never seen him this...peaceful looking. He was facing the T.V., one arm thrown across his face while the other was curled up at his side, and his legs were sprawled out at the other end of the sofa. There was even a soft snore coming from-

My thoughts stopped short and I jerked my gaze back to his legs. His legs, taking up the whole couch, sprawled out everywhere...me, waking up to a dull throb in my back and the ground in my face... He'd kicked me off! And he didn't even realize it! Wasn't he supposed to always be aware of his surroundings? Maybe he was faking...

I kneeled in front of his face, peering into his shut-eyes closely, looking for any sign that he might actually be awake. I noticed nothing, and warily began poking him in the shoulder.

"...Vegeta?" I whispered, trying not to wake him up if he really WAS asleep. I had no such luck. One second I was staring at a relaxed, peaceful face, the next I was staring wide-eyed up into angry looking eyes. "AACK! Hey! V-vegeta! What's the deal!" I exclaimed, tugging at the hand that was currently around my neck. Vegeta blinked once bewilderedly, before removing his hand and glancing around the room. He regained his bearings quicker than I had, I noticed, as realization and remembrance soon dawned in his eyes. He sat back gradually, apparently failing to realize that he WAS straddling my waist.

"What do you want, woman?" he asked gruffly, crossing his arms and peering down into my face.

"I was just wondering if you were awake or not, geez..." I mumbled, rubbing my throat with my right hand. Damn it, if he left any bruises... He scowled.

"Did it LOOK like I was awake?"

"Well you kicked me off the couch! I wasn't sure!" I said defensively, all of a sudden realizing how silly that sounded. Above me, he blinked.

"And you thought I MEANT to? It's not like I'm constantly fighting 24/7, you know," he growled.

"I know that!" I snapped back at him. "It's just...I mean...oh, nevermind," I sighed agitatedly. "But now my nose hurts! If I end up having a bruised nose to match the ones around my neck-" I started heatedly, before Vegeta interrupted me.

"Your neck's not bruised," he grumbled, pulling my hand away from my throat as if to make sure. "You're fine, stop being such a baby."

"A BABY! I'm not being a baby! It hurt, damn it!" I exclaimed angrily.

"It amazes me that such weak creatures have managed to survive this long," Vegeta said, finally standing up and walking towards the kitchen. "You humans are pathetic." I growled to myself and pushed myself off the ground, brushing the invisible dirt off my clothes.

"We are not pathetic. We just happen to use our brains more than our brawn."

"Maybe YOU do. Now what's your excuse for the rest of the planet?" he asked, sparing a glance towards me as he searched for something edible in the back of the fridge.

"They don't NEED an excuse! We've obviously got SOMETHING going for us, seeing as how we've survived longer than-" I stopped myself short as Vegeta glared at me. After all, I REALLY didn't want to get him angry.

"Don't even THINK to compare this lousy mudball of a backwash planet to MY home. They don't even come close," he growled dangerously. I only turned my nose up at him.

"And just HOW do you know I was going to say Vegeta-sei? MAYBE I was talking about NAMEK!" I walked over and tried to push him away from the refrigerator, but he didn't budge. "Ok, do you want breakfast or not?" I asked, jerking my head around to glare at him. Agitatedly I blew I few strands of hair out of my face. Vegeta only stared at me for a few minutes, before brushing by me on his way to the table.

"You WEREN'T talking about Namek," he said darkly, and sat down at the table in as bad a mood as I had ever seen him. Oh, way to go, Bulma. Ruin the day before it even begins! I continued to rebuke myself as I pulled some eggs and bacon out of the fridge.

"Um...so, how about I try eggs again today? Maybe this time I won't burn them, huh?" I asked cheerfully, though it sounded forced even to my own ears. Vegeta scowled at me. I sighed. "Look, Vegeta, I didn't mean it. And I stopped what I was saying, didn't I?" Gah, I HATE having to apologize, even if I didn't actually say sorry. He just stared at me. "Oh, would you stop glaring at me like that! It wasn't even that big a deal! Kami-almighty..." Angrily I whipped out a bowl and began to crack eggs, getting more than one piece of shell into the gooey yellow mix. I completely missed the smirk that Vegeta directed at my back.

& & & &

What started out as a not-too-great morning only turned into a really bad afternoon as the day wore on. Well, I guess it went from a not-too-great morning to an ok midday before turning into a good/fun lunch, and THEN plummeting into a really bad afternoon...or something like that. And it basically came down to the fact that as strong as Vegeta is, and no matter how good looking he may be, he's really just a complete moron. To be blunt. I mean, you think he would have known better! Or at least listened to me! Kami, the man has an ego big enough to satisfy the entire planet, not to mention it's surrounded by walls of haughtiness and I'm-better-than-thou feelings, but he COULD listen to me once in a while! Geez! It's not like I'm completely stupid and I'm just taking a wild guess when I say-

Whoa, ok Bulma, calm down. Deep breaths...

Sorry, got a little ahead of myself there. Guess you might want to know what I'm talking about before I go on ranting about the injustice of it all, huh? Well, it was like this.

As I'd said, it was really warm out, even in the morning when we left. It immediately brightened my outlook of the following hours, as I'd been dreading our little "outing" since breakfast. Vegeta, being the stubborn, arrogant jackass that he usually is, refused to travel in one of my air cars since we weren't going near any populated area. Of course, we could have just as easily walked, but whatever. And I, being the brilliant genius that I am, brought along my capsules, just in case. Hey, never leave home without 'em, right? Anyhow, Vegeta apparently had no qualms about carrying me, so off we flew. And good Kami, I was scared to death. Yes, I've flown with Yamcha plenty of times before, but I think Vegeta flew as fast as he possibly could, just to spite me. That of course meant that we made it to my hideaway in about thirty seconds.

"THIS is the 'really nice place' you were referring to?" Vegeta growled out, setting me on my feet as we landed. I frowned slightly, missing the feeling of his arms around me, even if I'd been about to shit my pants. Walking away from him a bit, I glanced around. We'd landed beside the beach, just where the grass meets the sand. Behind me was a big open field, spotted with dandelions, and in front a large lake expanded outwards. The water was as still as it could possibly get, almost like glass as it showed a reflection of the surrounding trees on its surface. There was still an early morning mist rolling off of it, and other than the deep breathing of the saiyan behind me, I could only hear birds chirping.

It was beautiful.

No wonder Vegeta hated it.

"Yes, Vegeta, this is where I used to spend my summer days when I was younger. I'd just drag an encyclopedia down here with me and be gone for hours." I sighed wistfully, memories coming back to me. Back before I knew aliens really did exist, much less on MY planet. I turned slightly to look at Vegeta out of the corner of my eye. He was glaring into the forest on our right, as if willing a bear or something to come charging out so the peace would be broken. "You can go train over there," I said, gesturing to the field. "Tear it up as much as you like, just make sure none of your little beam attack thingies hit ME." He barely spared me a glance before stomping off towards the said area. I shrugged. Whatever.

A few hours later, my portable radio was nearly blown to smithereens, not to mention I nearly DIED, as a stray beam, I swear it was purposely directed there, crashed into the ground mere feet away from me. As any sensible woman would do in a near-death situation, I screamed.

"HOLY SHIT VEGETA! What the HELL do you think you're DOING? You could have KILLED me you ASS-HOLE!" I shouted, jumping to my feet and shaking a fist at the annoying figure hovering above me. He only crossed his arms and stared haughtily down at me.

"Oops?" he offered sarcastically, that oh-so-annoying-yet-incredibly-handsome smirk appearing. I growled, or did the best impersonation of one that I could, and tried to calm my breathing while brushing the dirt that had landed on me off my body, which, by the way, was clad in only my bikini. Hey, I said I was going tanning, remember?

"Goddammit, Vegeta... You did that on purpose!" I accused, pointing at him. He dropped out of the air, landing swiftly on his feet in front of me, and propped his hands up onto his hips.

"Duh," was the only reply he gave me. I opened my mouth to shout at him again, only to actually acknowledge his reply and deflate slightly.

"...Oh..."

"I'm hungry. Where's this food that you said you'd bring?" I bristled angrily at that.

"You know, you could have just ASKED that in the first place! All this blowing up of things really isn't my style," I snapped at him, but nonetheless pulled a capsule out of my bag. "Stand back," I demanded, before throwing it onto the ground in front of us. One minor explosion later, there was a huge feast set out before us, causing Vegeta's eyes to widen a little. "I told you I'd bring a lot of food, didn't I?" I asked, smirking.

"You did outdo yourself, woman. I must admit, I am impressed." Oh, hooray for me, I got Vegeta's approval! Right... I voiced this sarcastically, but was ignored as Vegeta had already begun to eat. My stomach grumbled at the site of all the food, so I gave up on getting a tan for a while, and sat down to eat with Vegeta.

"See Vegeta, this wasn't so bad, was it? Aren't you glad you came with me?" I asked him, picking up a turkey sandwich.

"Your mother cooked all of this, didn't she? It's actually edible," Vegeta remarked, completely ignoring my question. I smiled. Who did he think he was kidding? He knew that I knew my cooking was terrible.

"That means you're having a good time," I said, smugness evident in my voice. He finally looked at me.

"I didn't say that, I said the food was edible! You're getting mixed messages."

"Right, whatever you say, Vegeta." He was quiet for a moment, obviously irked that I wasn't being baited into an argument.

"I pretty much destroyed the field, hope you don't mind." Oh, and he sounded SO concerned when he said that. Yeah right. I did chance a look at what was left though, almost afraid of what I would see. Turned out it wasn't TOO completely awful. It was...well...it was pretty much a big hole in the ground now. I turned back around and gave Vegeta a slight smile, shrugging. His frown deepened.

"You look horrible in that outfit, you know," he tried again, grinning evilly. I guess he figured if anything would set me off, it would a comment about my looks. Well, that USUALLY was the case...but not today. I grinned; at least I knew he'd seen my suit.

"Mhmm."

"Especially with your hair all messed up now. And there's dirt in it. It looks like a bird was trying to make a nest out of it." Eww, there was dirt in my hair? Pfft, I didn't care at the moment. I have to say though, it took some will not to giggle at Vegeta's efforts.

"I'm glad you're scrutinizing me so carefully." Vegeta frowned again.

"I killed Baldy." THAT caused me to choke on my drink and I nearly spit it out again. When I was able to breathe again, I started cracking up. "Finally, a reaction," Vegeta muttered, glowering at me darkly. Right, a reaction...but not the one he wanted.

"S-sorry," I got out through my laughter as it died down. I wiped a stray tear from my eye. "Hoo-boy. Hehe. So ya killed Krillen, huh? When's his funeral?" And his glare intensified. "What?" No reply. "So, my hair really looks that bad, huh?" I asked, running a hand through it.

"Yes, it's hideous." He just wouldn't give up! Whatever, he was NOT goading a fight out of me.

"I guess I'll have to wash it out then. It's your fault though... Hey, wanna go for a swim? I don't know if the water's warm enough tho-" I got cut off abruptly as Vegeta swiftly picked me up. Next thing I knew, I was hovering in his arms out above the middle of the lake. Oh hell no... "Vegeta, what the hell are you doing?" I asked warily. He smirked at me.

"You said you wanted to go swimming."

"Yeah, but the water's probably freezing right now."

"Your point?"

"Look, let me put it this way," I said quickly as I felt his grip on me loosening. "You drop me, you find a new home."

"DROP you? Now THERE'S an idea. It hadn't even occurred to me, honestly." Hmm, can we say...BULLSHIT!

"Vegeta, please, w-what if it's so cold it shocks me and I can't swim and then I drown? Huh? Goku would kill you and then you would never reach Super Saiyan! We wouldn't want THAT, now would we?" I said rapidly, really starting to panic.

"I'll be off the planet before he finds out," Vegeta replied, grinning evilly once more. His eyes were twinkling with amusement though, and that caused me to pause, searching his eyes. He blinked once, his arms tightening just slightly around me as he noticed how quiet I'd gotten and how I was staring at him. Apparently he was uncomfortable with my scrutiny, if the light blush along his cheeks was any clue. I smiled at him, raising one of my hands (I'd been holding onto his arm for dear life) to rest behind his neck. He tensed up, eyes widening the smallest degree. "What-" he began to ask, but I interrupted him, placing a finger on his lips. He just stared at me, completely baffled.

"Shhh," I murmured softly, sitting up a little and barely, just barely brushing my lips across his cheek before I completely shocked him-

-and pushed myself out of his arms. By the time he registered what had happened, I was already breaking through the glassy surface of the lake. My mind, however, was on anything but the cool water. Damn it, Bulma! I wasn't supposed to be coming onto to him like this! I was dropping WAY too many hints. I wanted HIM to come to ME...which was an unlikely event in itself. I suddenly realized that if I even had a chance with Vegeta, I would have to be alive, and that required breathing, which required air for my burning lungs. I broke through the top of the water, gasping for air and finally noticing how cold the water was. I was surprised to find that...it wasn't. Cold, I mean. It was still cool, but a lot warmer than I'd thought it would be. I glanced up, looking around for Vegeta, and found him still floating where he'd been before. I took the liberty of, once again, acting like nothing had happened.

"Are you coming in, Vegeta? The water's really warm!" I yelled up to him.

"I think I'll pass!" he yelled back down, sounding very annoyed. I grinned. Good.

So anyway, I think we've made it up to the "good/fun lunch." Are you wondering how it plummeted into a "really bad afternoon"? Well I was just getting to that. Remember the portable radio that was only briefly mentioned earlier? Well, it suddenly started spouting off warnings of severe thunderstorms in the area, probably within the hour. Severe meaning the whole deal - heavy rain, thunder, lightening, and large hail. Perfect, an early summer storm. My little swim was done and over with by then, and Vegeta had gone back to training, so I was the only one that heard the warning. It was fine with me, I was about ready to go back home anyway. There wasn't any food left for dinner. Vegeta, however, had other plans.

"Vegeta, would you just LISTEN to me for once!" I screamed at him, trying to convince him to come back with me. I'd already packed everything up.

"Woman, no little STORM is going to harm me! You can go back, I'M going to continue my training!"

"Damn it, Vegeta! It's not JUST a storm. It's a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM! There's going to be lightening and you're out parading around in an open field! Should I just HAND you a metal stick!" I was getting frustrated. Why couldn't he listen to me? Just once! "And there'll be hail too!"

"Hmm, let me think, I've survived ki blasts, will a chunk of ice hurt?" Vegeta asked sarcastically. "I think not. Just be on your way, I'll come back later." Apparently wanting to have the last word, he turned around and blasted off, not giving me a chance to reply. Well fine. If he wanted to get killed, then so be it.

Four hours later, I wasn't angry anymore. I was more worried than I'd ever been in my life. The storm had been just what the weather warnings had said. Severe. I could see branches scattered all across Capsule Corp.'s lawn, and there was even a huge tree laying across our driveway. The hail had left dents in the one car that we'd forgotten to capsulate, and it was still raining lightly. There was no sign of Vegeta. The storm itself had ended almost an hour and a half ago, and it was beginning to get dark. I swore to myself that if he didn't show up soon, I was going to call Goku, and I KNOW Vegeta would have hated me for that.

An hour later, that's just what I did.

"Moshi moshi," I heard Chichi greet cheerfully over the phone.

"Chichi? It's Bulma."

"Oh hey Bulma! How have you been?" Wow, I guess it HAD been a while since we last talked.

"I've been fine... Look, I don't want to sound rude, but I've got a problem. Can I talk to Goku?"

"Oh sure, hold one second." I heard her yell for Goku before she spoke to me again. "Can I ask what's wrong? You sound upset."

"I'll tell you later, I promise."

"Alright, I'll hold you to that. Here's Goku."

"Thanks, Chichi."

"No problem. Bye, Bulma." I nodded, forgetting for a second that she couldn't see me.

"Bulma?"

"Oh Goku, thank Kami!" I cried out, bursting into unexpected tears. My parents, who were both worriedly sitting at the kitchen table, glanced up at me. I vaguely heard my mom tell my dad how she hoped Vegeta was all right, but I ignored her. Rapidly I gave Goku the straight facts about what had happened, leaving out anything that might have made the situation awkward. No sooner had I finished talking that I heard my parents gasp. I whirled around, thinking Vegeta might have just staggered in the door or something, but I spun straight into Goku's chest. I yelped and dropped the phone, but Goku caught it before it hit the ground.

"Sorry about that!" he exclaimed sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "I really need to learn to warn people before I do that." I was clutching my chest in a desperate attempt to calm my racing heart, and could only glare at him.

"Well," I said when I could talk again, "can you find him?" Goku smiled.

"Oh sure! I just need to concentrate on his ki. You really don't notice stuff like that unless you really focus on it, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure Goku. Just...do it now, ok?"

"Oh, right. I'm sure he's still out there training, Bulma. Nothing to worry about!" He said that in full confidence, however, half a second later, a worried look crossed his face. "Shit..." he breathed out, and I froze. Goku RARELY cussed.

"What? What is it? Goku, what's wrong?" I asked urgently. He glanced at me.

"His ki's really low. He's still alive, but I think he's probably unconscious."

"Well come on then! We have to go to him!" I exclaimed, grabbing Goku's arm. "Do the teleport thing, hurry!"

"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying, calm down Bulma. Dr. Briefs, do you think you can go to a med-lab or something so I can concentrate on you and teleport us there when we get Vegeta?" Goku asked, completely calm with the situation. I never dealt well with things like this.

"Oh, yes, yes of course. Good plan m'boy," my father said, and then quickly got up and scurried out of the room. The last thing I heard before Goku and I fazed out was my mother wailing, "Poor Vegeta!"

We appeared back in the field I was at earlier, but I couldn't see anything because it was so dark. Goku powered up to Super Saiyan, allowing his gold glow to bask the area with light. I glanced around and quickly spotted a huddled form on the ground a few feet away.

"Vegeta!" I gasped, and immediately ran to him. Damn it, if he would only LISTEN to me. Goku wasted no time following me and before I knew it we were fazing into the same med-lab Vegeta had stayed in before. Powering down, Goku knelt down in front of Vegeta.

"His ears are bleeding," he said, looking at the sticky, red trail down the side of Vegeta's face. "Or they were, anyway. I can't tell if they are anymore or not."

"It looks to me like he got struck by lightening," I heard my father say, coming up behind us. "And it's the only thing that really makes sense. Look, his hair is singed a little." ...The only thing that really makes sense? It didn't make sense AT ALL to me. How could a little bit of lightening knock out a saiyan? I would have thought they were too strong for that. Glancing at Goku, I noticed his slightly confused expression, as if he didn't exactly understand it either. My father knelt down then and stuck a shot in Vegeta's arm, most likely a sedative to keep him out for a while. Vegeta groaned slightly. Goku, however, screamed in fear.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! NEEDLE! GET IT AWAY!"

"GOKU! Calm down! Dad, put that thing away!" I ordered, and he quickly did so, looking startled.

"Uh, eh-heh, sorry..." Goku smiled sheepishly again.

"No problem. Now, can you get Vegeta up on the bed?"

& & & &

An hour later, Vegeta was all cleaned up and sleeping in the med-lab while Goku and I stood off to the side of his bed, talking. We heard a groan from Vegeta, so naturally I quickly went over to him. Once again I missed another smirk that was directed at my back, only this time it was from Goku.

"Vegeta?" I asked softly, smiling when he blinked and squinted his eyes.

"Bulma?" I nodded.

"Mhmm." He growled suddenly.

"Why is Kakarot here?"

"Oh hey, would you look at the time? Chichi's gonna kill me, gotta go!" Goku said, quickly teleporting away before Vegeta got too mad.

"You really did a number on yourself, y'know that?" I asked him, smirking. He just stared blankly at me. "Well, I guess it was actually Mother Nature that did a number on you..." He still didn't say anything. "I told you to come back with me, didn't I? You should have listened. I AM a genius you know, and you KNOW I was right." The only response I got this time was a slight narrowing of his eyes, as if in confusion. "So...what happened exactly? Do you remember? Goku and I couldn't figure out what might have knocked you unconcious." I waited several seconds for him to answer, but he didn't, and I was getting annoyed. "Vegeta, what's your problem?" I asked, narrowing my own eyes angrily and propping one of my hands up on my waist. He still just stared at me. "Damn it Veg-"

"Bulma," Vegeta said quite loudly, cutting me off and sounding very serious about whatever it was he was about to say. "Would you mind telling me why the_hell_ this constant buzzing in my head won't go away?"

Shit...

* * *

Er...lol, yeah. Next chapter up soon!

-Maxine


	9. Chapter 9

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 9 - **V-POV**

Vegeta's point-of-view this time!

* * *

The female species- and yes, I said "species"- is an enigma. I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it until Frieza comes back from the dead and does a scene from the Nutcracker, complete in a purple tutu. Wait, that's not exactly an unlikely proposition...

Anyway.

I do admit that since Bulma has become my mate, she's not AS much of a mystery, but she still has her moments. Some of her mood-swings make me want to strangle her pathetic human neck...

I'm getting off track again.

In any case, back then, it was even worse. Just look at the crap she's been spewing out. "I didn't want to make the first move, but oh, I'll kiss him anyway! Wait, no I won't kiss him, but I'll act all disappointed. No, maybe I'll act like I'm getting close to him, but as soon as he disobeys my commands I'll be a royal bitch towards him until we jump in the sack-"

Oh, we haven't gotten that far yet, have we?

Hmm...

I'm not too good at relaying stories, and that's a weakness that I'm not exactly ashamed of.

Well, let's back up a bit, then.

I suppose it was sometime after that "scar" conversation that we had when I discovered that when she wasn't being a damn mother-hen, or screeching at me like a banshee, I could actually tolerate the woman's presence. And for me, that's saying a lot.

I'm not blind. It was obvious as anything that she found me attractive (but then, who wouldn't?). And even I can't lie and say that she's ugly. But there's a thin line between lust and like (or love, if you prefer).

She liked me.

I didn't like her.

Simple as that.

But these damn humans are so fucking fragile, and they take everything the wrong way. I'll admit, she took me by surprise that night by actually managing to douse me in that horrid smelling shit, but I'm still not quite sure what happened afterwards.

I was going to kiss her, I'm almost positive of it.

Hell, she was bouncing all over the place in that thin top she had on, what did she expect? She's sexy as hell, and I hadn't been with a woman in...hmm, ok, so I'd never actually BEEN with a woman...per say...

Anyway, there's the lust for you. I had no feelings otherwise. Obviously, SHE did. The warning bells went off when she decided to throw out all her perfume. The stuff's her most prized possession, and I give her one conversation about it and she decides to change her life style.

Honestly.

But that wasn't the worst of it. I'd already agreed to go...wherever it was we were going the next day, and I couldn't back out of a promise. I don't really know how we managed to fall asleep together that night. I'd had an especially hard training day that day, and I had a massive headache-

NO. I was NOT, nor was I EVER, sick.

The next morning, after the strangest, or maybe the most pointless argument- though most of my disagreements with her seemed to be pointless- I'd ever had, we left to go to that lake thing that just happened to reside in her back yard. And most of the day was all right...until she decided to not be provoked into any arguments with me.

When someone decides that they're no longer worthy of arguing with me because we're suddenly...I refuse to say "friends"...better acquainted, that's where I draw the line. I'm not now, and I certainly wasn't then, FRIENDS with anybody. So, in an effort to be mean and cruel, and yes I'm aware it was a pathetic attempt, I threatened to drop Bulma into the lake.

She'd said she wanted to go swimming after all. Of course, after she showed off her swimsuit. Bah.

But then she went and pulled yet another stunt that officially inducted her into the "Women-Enigma Species."

She kissed me. On the cheek.

And then proceeded to throw herself into the water.

Does this make sense to anybody? It didn't to me. Damn woman.

And then she had the nerve to try and drag me back to her home with her. Because it was going to rain, and thunder, and lightening.

Oh, Kami forbid I get killed in the storm. Frieza couldn't even compare to its wrath.

Huh, right.

Of course, here I have to demean myself and admit that she was partially right. But only partially! That storm would have done no harm to me had I actually been paying attention. It was a dumb mistake on my part, one I have made sure never to repeat.

I was very frustrated when she left. Frustrated with how I was acting towards her,- far too NICE- frustrated with how she was acting towards me,- I told you, she liked me but the feelings weren't reciprocated- and just all around frustrated! So, as I always do, I poured it into my training. I could literally feel the heat around me as my power level went up. It seared my skin, as it had never done before. The hairs on the back of my neck crackled in the static.

It was overwhelming, almost like a drug. I had to have more. But I could tell I was almost at my limit. Yet did I stop?

Do I ever?

I reached that plateau, the one that I hadn't, at that point, ever been able to pass. It was like, my energy just...stopped. I could feel my ki whipping around me in blue flames. The lightening, not caused by me, cracked in the distance and the heavy sound of thunder rumbled mere seconds afterwards. I was still trying to get my level up, straining against that invisible barrier that refused to let me through.

I failed to remember that I was standing in the middle of a clear field that had no other trees or shrubs around, thanks to yours truly.

I was, quite obviously, the tallest thing around.

And if I hear one wise-ass remark about THAT statement, I'll hunt you down and Big Bang your ass...

Anyway, it went unnoticed by me. My frustration and tiredness and all-around confusion for that blue-haired woman kept building, tumbling over one-another in an effort to end up on top. They were all heavy emotions, but not the one needed to finally transform. I remember hovering slightly above the ground, nearly there, WISHING that it would just HAPPEN...

...when I felt the familiar feeling of static wash over my body as my hairs stood on end. I realized seconds too late that I was acting as a damn lightening rod, standing there like that. But before I could drop my power level, the inevitable happened.

When the lightening struck, I vaguely felt my power surge upwards. But it was far too much for my unprepared body to handle, so it caved. I remember seeing the blue ki flames around me melt into gold for all of half a second, flicker, and collapse with the rest of me to muddy ground below.

Which is where...Kakarot...found me, I guess.

When I awoke, my headache was back, and for a brief second I had no idea where I was. The throb in my head I could ignore, trying to focus my other senses. I instantly smelled the sharp scent of hospital antibiotics, I could feel Kakarot's ki on the opposite side of the room, I could only see a blurred white ceiling as my eyes adjusted...

But I couldn't hear anything other than a loud, highly annoying ringing sound bouncing around in my head. I blamed it instantly for my headache.

I was still trying to figure out what was going on when I heard a soft, almost too soft, voice calling out to me. A voice I didn't really want to hear at the moment.

"Vegeta?"

Urk...

I remember distinctly that that was the first thought that entered my head.

Blinking once and squinting to focus better, I wearily tried to find the source of the voice.

"Bulma?" She nodded and I think murmured something else. I couldn't tell. I was too busy being distracted by other annoying people in the room. I growled.

"Why is Kakarot here?"

I saw him moving his lips rapidly before he performed that damn transmission thingy and disappeared. I think he had mumbled something about that harpy wife of his.

That was when Bulma started talking.

And I couldn't hear a word of it. Just an indistinct mumble, and I could only stare blankly at her.

She paused after a second or so, obviously waiting for something. I assume she'd asked me something, but I had no idea what. Apparently it wasn't important, because she began babbling on again.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out what the hell she was saying. Was it her? Or was something wrong with...me?

The woman was starting to look annoyed. I'm pretty positive she was asking me the same thing over and over, and she wasn't very happy that I wasn't replying.

Finally, I decided that I may as well acknowledge her...and the annoying ringing that had faded to a mere buzz that was still bouncing about my head.

"Bulma," I said, probably louder than I meant to, and I'm sure I cut her off from whatever she was bitching about. "Would you mind telling me why the HELL this constant buzzing in my head won't go away?" I asked, very conversationally, if you ask me.

I didn't like the look she gave me. It was one of pure panic. Like something awful had happened.

I guess that's when I remembered what had previously occurred.

Bulma was talking rapidly now, gesturing at me randomly and trying to update her father at the same time. I paid no attention to her, instead reaching up to feel around my ears.

There was a dull pain around there.

Well, duh. I rolled my eyes. I'd fucking burst my eardrums. It's not exactly an unusual thing when you're hit with any type of high voltage. I'd been thoroughly ignoring Bulma all this time though, and I honestly think she was about to start crying on me.

I tuned in on her again, noting with relief that the buzzing was fading away slightly, and her words were only slightly muffled. Yeah, being a Saiyan, my ears would be fine again in no time.

"Would you stop your incessant rambling, woman?" I finally ground out, enjoying the brief look of surprise that crossed her face. It didn't last long, soon turning into joy.

"You can hear me?"

Hmm, well, not really. It sounded like she was calling out to me in a room down the hallway or something, but she didn't need to know that.

"Vaguely," I replied, crossing my arms across my bare chest. I belatedly noticed that they'd changed my clothes and I was clad in only my boxers.

Black silk ones, might I add. Don't you just wish you would see my smirk, ladies?

"Well, good, then you can listen to me chew you out!"

I barely spared her a glance out of the corner of my eye, and effectively ignored her as she proceeded to bitch- oh, I mean, CHEW- me out. Her joyful expression was gone. In its place was one of anger, worry, and something else I refused to acknowledge. She continued yelling at me while I retreated into my mind, having more important things to mull over.

I definitely remembered seeing my ki flicker gold, but I hadn't been able to hold it. That pissed me off. Obviously, I needed more training.

I wondered if perhaps I might be able to actually transform now, since it was possible that I HAD held the form for about a second.

I would later discover that I couldn't even strain against that plateau again. I hadn't reached the next level.

"Vegeta? Vegeta! Vegeta, are you listening to me? Hey!"

Coming out of my thoughts, I turned my glare on the woman beside my bed, absently noting that I would have to get a new evil look since she was no longer affected by my current one.

"What the hell do you want, woman!"

She paused then, looking at me with that weird shine in her eyes. Almost as if she was about to cry again.

It made me quite uncomfortable, and I leaned back slightly.

"I'm...I just wanted you to know that...I'm really glad you're ok," she said softly, sniffing a bit. I vaguely noticed that I could hear her almost normally now. "You really scared me."

"Damn it, Bulma, it was just a storm. How weak do you think I am?" I huffed, slightly insulted that she seemed to think so little of me. She shook her head lightly.

"Sorry, I don't think you're weak. I was just worried, that's all." She smiled at me, and I had to refrain from flinching at the...odd look in her eyes.

"Well, stop worrying," I mumbled. "How many times must I tell you that?" She didn't answer and continued smiling at me, to a point that I became unnerved.

Then the oddest thing happened.

The smile dropped right off her face and a look of cold fury entered her eyes again.

"I still can't believe you didn't listen to me, you jerk! All of this could have been avoided, you know. But nooooo! Mister Almighty-Saiyan-Prince had to do things HIS way! You're such a dumbass, Vegeta! Why can't you just admit when I'm right and take my advice!"

Blah, blah, blah...

Sigh...

Woman-Enigma Species, anyone?

* * *

Short chapter, ne? Sorry! Next one will be up soon!

-Maxine


	10. Chapter 10

Vegeta on a White Stallion? Not likely... - Chapter 10 - **B-POV**

Bulma's point-of-view...

* * *

Whatever rocky, semi-friendship we had started to form crumbled sometime after the whole lightning incident. Vegeta never really told me what happened out there, but as soon as he recovered - ok, so it was the next day - he threw himself into his training more seriously than ever. It was rare that I saw him from then on out. He came in for meals, but even then he didn't eat with the rest of us. I know he DID eat, because there was always food missing from the fridge, so I'm assuming he ate late at night. That, or early in the morning.

Then again, with him, those times might just overlap...

In any case, that was how he spent his life. Eat, sleep, train, grunt at me whenever we happened to pass each other in the hall. I didn't have a real conversation with him for at least a month.

And he definitely wouldn't be taking anymore days off for "relaxed" training.

Hmph.

Anyway, my birthday came about in July. Now, usually I have a huge party and invite all my friends, and blah blah blah, you know, cake, balloons, bands, the whole spiel. The past two years, though, I guess we'd all been a bit preoccupied. Come to think of it...I hadn't had a big party in years...anyway! I didn't have a big party that year either.

My parents were really nice about it, as always. They still bought me presents, made my favorite breakfast, so on and so forth. They even had balloons up. Heh, I was touched, really, but I was a little on edge. Hell, I'd been on edge ever since Vegeta stopped talking to me! I didn't like how he was ignoring me, and while I knew he wasn't doing it purposely, it still irked me.

So, I did something stupid. Anything to get his attention, right?

Wrong.

But I'm dumb like that. I took what could have been short and simple and made it long and painful. Downright hurtful, even. Though I didn't mean a word of it.

I should have learned I could never REALLY win in an argument with Vegeta.

& & & &

I awoke slowly that morning, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light pouring through my windows and trying to figure out what had roused me from my deep sleep. It was someone tapping on my door.

"Bulma, honey?" I heard my mother's voice call, muffled through the wood. I groaned. "Are you awake? Bulma?"

"M'up, mom," I mumbled, sliding further beneath my blankets. Middle of July or not, I still slept beneath my nice, toasty quilt.

"What was that?"

I sighed agitatedly, pulling the blanket off my head. "I said I'm UP," I bit out, a little louder. I heard a squeal of excitement from my mother, and I could feel my brow furrow in confusion. Then the door swung open and my mom very nearly bounced over to me.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart!" she cried, throwing her arms around me as I sat up. "You're father's downstairs making your FAVORITE breakfast, isn't that nice? How did you sleep?" she continued to ask, smiling at me through her ever-closed eyes. I didn't bother answering her questions, I was still busy trying to comprehend what she'd said at first.

It was my birthday already?

"Goodness, you slept long enough, didn't you? Come on, come on, get up! You have to open your presents. I bought you a new outfit that I think you'll just love!" my mom tittered on. I snuck a glance at the clock, surprised to see that it was already 11:17. Then her words caught up with me once more.

"A new outfit?" I asked meekly, eyes going wide. My mom, though I love her dearly, canNOT pick out clothes for me. I swear, I think she believes I'm still in kindergarten or something.

Sure enough, a little later as I prepared to get dressed, I had to stare in horror at what she bought.

Come ON, mom.

Pink and purple went out AGES ago.

Especially pink tank tops, purple hair scrunchies, and matching pink and purple plaid skirts.

I had to stand there for a while trying to pretend it was somewhat cute...

It wasn't working.

Luckily, I would only have to wear this once, today, and then shove it in the back of my closet with the rest of my plaid and polka dot clothes. Ugh.

As I was doing my hair, I seriously considered putting it up in a sideways ponytail and then bouncing off to the nearest high school to see if I could pass as a student...

Nah.

A little while later, after eating the breakfast so lovingly prepared for me, I was on my way to the living room to lounge about lazily and do nothing all day. I never work when it's my birthday. See my grin? Heh, when you're the president of a billion-dollar company, you can pull stunts like that.

So, I was halfway through the door when Vegeta decides to grace us with his presence for the first time in months.

It scared the shit out of me, as he pretty much appeared out of nowhere.

I was standing there, hand over my chest and trying to catch my breath when I noticed his eyes running up and down my form. I grinned smugly and was about to comment on it, but he beat me to it.

Crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe, he raised an eyebrow at me. "You do realize that outfit clashes horribly with your hair, right?"

The smug grin fell right off my face.

"Well thank you, Mr. Fashion," I said sarcastically, propping my arms up on my waist. Vegeta smirked and nodded his head once, as if saying, "you're welcome." I made a disgusted sound in the back of my throat, but immediately felt the need to explain the reason for such a horrid choice of clothes. "My mom bought these for me," I said lightly, tossing my hair over my shoulder.

"Your mother still buys your clothes?" Vegeta asked incredulously. "Kami forbid you have ANYTHING that looks somewhat decent."

I didn't know if that was a compliment or not, so I decided to ignore it.

"No, Vegeta, I buy my own clothes. It's just that it's my birthday today, so she got this as a gift for me." I did a slow turn for him. "She thinks I'm turning five." Vegeta blinked and let out a short bark of laughter, before pausing.

"Your birthday?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"Uh-huh."

"I thought it was next week." Again, I wasn't sure if this was the truth or not, but this was the longest conversation we'd had in weeks, so I didn't care.

"Nope, it's definitely today."

"Oh." There was an awkward pause in our talking, which was strange, as it had never occurred before. Then I just had to go and open my yap.

"Well?" I said suggestively, eying his muscled form and finally noticing that he had just come from the GR.

"Well what?" he replied edgily, as if getting tired of our talking.

"Well, aren't you going to wish me a happy birthday?" I chuckled lightly, but Vegeta's eyebrows furrowed.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because it's my birthday!"

"Yes, we've been over that already."

"Well, that's what you do on earth when it's someone's birthday. You say 'happy birthday!'"

"Hn. Another stupid human tradition. Tell me, what exactly does it accomplish?" I blinked at him.

"Um...well, nothing really, except make the person feel good..." I paused. "It's just the polite thing to do!"

"Heh, I'm NOT polite."

"Believe me, I know."

"Watch your mouth, woman."

"Oh, so we're back to the woman thing, now?" Somewhere along the line, our voices started rising. "What, you're already too high-and-mighty to grace us with your SAIYAN presence anymore, but now you don't even acknowledge our names!"

"That's right," Vegeta growled. "Is that a problem?"

"Yes! Need I remind you, Ve-ge-ta," I started, punctuating each syllable in his name, "you are a guest in this house."

"Whatever." He tried to walk past me, but I stepped in his path. "WHAT do you WANT?"

"YOU are intolerable, Vegeta!"

"Oh, big word. Don't overwork your brain."

"I'm a genius, remember? I can't 'overwork my brain.'"

"You'd be surprised. Now, you're interrupting my training, get out of my way." Vegeta tried to move around me again, but I wouldn't budge. "Don't make me hurt you," he threatened.

"You wouldn't dare," I nearly hissed at him. His balled up fist suddenly lit up with energy. I could feel the heat from where I was standing, and it only got hotter as he slowly walked toward me, eyes hard and cold.

"Is that a challenge?" he whispered fiercely. I lifted my chin a notch and continued to stare him straight in the eyes, though I was pretty sure he could hear my heart pounding frantically. "DON'T tempt me, woman." He let the energy extinguish from his fist, clearly expecting me to move, but I stood my ground defiantly. He looked at me exasperatedly, and for some reason I noted that he was only inches away from me. "Have you gone insane? What ARE you trying to accomplish?"

Hmm, what had we started arguing about? Oh yeah.

"Wish me happy birthday," I said to him through clenched teeth, forcing back a wince at how petty that sounded. He blinked at me, and then narrowed his eyes.

"Why? So you'll feel good about yourself? Isn't that the point of the whole thing?" His low voice was rumbling about me and I went weak at the knees. He was pissed at me, I could tell, but there was an underlying confusion in his voice, as if he didn't quite understand why I was being so stubborn about this.

To be honest, I wasn't so sure myself, so I only gave him a slight nod. He grinned, but there was no humor in it whatsoever.

"Well then in that case, by all means..." He bowed to me, folding one arm across his chest and sweeping the other out in a graceful gesture. And this wasn't just your average, polite-type bow. This one was mocking in its depth, Vegeta's back far past parallel with the ground. "Happy. Birthday. Bulma." His voice was hard and his eyes harder as he stood straight again, glaring at me.

He seemed to have gotten a new angry look, because this glare chilled me to the bone, whereas I'd gotten to the point where I could ignore his other one.

He went to move past me, and this time I stepped aside, letting him. My hair had fallen in my eyes but I didn't bother to move it. Vegeta paused when he was directly beside me and spoke again, his tone filled with a sort of fake humor, anger bellying it.

"You should have the honor of knowing, as my beautiful hostess, that you're the first person I've bowed to since Kakarot stole my right to kill Frieza." He smiled that mocking grin, the one that had no truth in it whatsoever, and moved past me into the kitchen.

I could feel my cheeks burning as I clenched my fists; in anger, embarrassment, shame...I wasn't sure. Maybe all three. I knew he had never bowed to Frieza out of honor for the tyrant. He'd hated the guy, bowing to him had been a blow to his pride and he'd never done so seriously.

I was quite aware of what he was telling me.

For some reason, I didn't enjoy the rest of my birthday.

& & & &

Pretty pathetic, huh? But that was just the start of it. Trust me, that was not the painful argument I was referring to. That'll come soon enough.

That was the start of it though. From then on out, Vegeta didn't even grunt at me anymore. I wanted to apologize to him more than anything, but my own pride wouldn't let me. I ignored him as effectively as he ignored me. I buried myself in my work, sleeping and eating less. I was pretty much in a bad mood at all times of the day.

I guess I was morphing into Vegeta.

Well, not really.

That went on for nearly three months. It may have been closer to two and a half, I don't know.

And then one day, the GR broke.

& & & &

"Woman!"

The voice startled me, as I hadn't heard it in a long time. I didn't slow in my walk, though. If anything, I sped up. I did NOT want to talk to that stupid, mangy, good-for-nothing, ugly-

"WOMAN!" A hand landed on my shoulder and I nearly screamed as I was turned around and shoved up against the wall. "When I talk to you, you listen, got it?" Vegeta was growling to my face. I met his eyes angrily.

"I'll listen if I want to," I said defiantly, doing that chin-raising thing and gazing at him coolly. Vegeta ignored me.

"The GR's broken, you have to fix it." He released my shoulder, clearly expecting me to run of to the said machine.

Ha.

I think not.

"I don't HAVE to do anything," I tried to growl back at him. I'll admit my growl was pretty pathetic. Vegeta turned slowly to look at me.

"What did you just say?" he asked calmly, and I immediately got nervous. Vegeta? Calm?

"Uh, I-I said I don't have to do anything," I said quickly, trying not to cower into the wall behind me. I don't like being around a calm Vegeta. Crazy things could happen... Vegeta actually chuckled at me. I knew that couldn't possibly be a good thing.

"Bulma, Bulma, Bulma," he chided. "You don't seem to understand. When I say to do something...you do it!" he continued, pinning me with that cold glare and dropping all signs of amusement. I think it may have been his mocking use of my name, but suddenly, something sparked in me.

I got pissed.

"No, Vegeta. I don't think you understand," I said flatly, standing up straight and pushing my face in front of his. "_I_ don't have to do a damn thing for you, you FUCKING DUMBASS!" I screamed at him. He actually seemed startled for a second before his face hardened again and he opened his mouth to retort. But I cut him off. "NO! You listen to me, Vegeta, and listen good. I offered you a home here, and you accepted. You've been here for two years, in which we have fed you, clothed you, given you a place to train, all for nothing! We didn't ask for a damn thing in return!"

In all actuality, I could care less about giving him these things. We could certainly afford it, after all.

"I'm saving your fucking planet in return!" Vegeta yelled right back at me.

"Goku can save the fucking planet!"

"Kakarot's supposed to die!"

"HE HAS THE MEDICINE!"

"He'll die anyway! YOU CAN'T CHANGE FATE!"

"Well then you'll die too, so WHAT'S THE POINT!" I paused for a half-second here, before shaking my head and bringing up a hand to shade my eyes. "No, you know what? You should already BE dead." That threw him off for a second.

"And what exactly are you referring to?" he growled, taking a half-step closer to me so that our chests were touching.

"You don't get it, do you?" I asked, chuckling coldly and lowering my hands so that I could stare at him with eyes of ice. "You're here by accident," I bit out as harshly as I could, still talking in an eerily quiet voice. "When we wished for everyone who was killed by Frieza to be brought back to life, you just happened to be included. No one wished you back specifically, and nobody would have. You were too weak to kill Frieza, you died by his hand, and your precious KAKAROT had to bury you."

What the HELL was I saying! Stop, Bulma, STOP!

But I didn't, the words were coming of their own accord. I was using the one thing I KNEW Vegeta had a sore spot about, and I was hitting him hard.

"You. Were. Dead. You didn't turn super saiyan, you didn't beat Frieza, and you weren't missed. You were dead, buried, and done with." I crossed my arms and stared at him coldly. "Nobody wanted you back, you're only here because of a misworded wish. You weren't wanted then, you're not wanted now, and quite frankly, I doubt you'll ever be wanted. You're only excess baggage that has to be stored somewhere, and that somewhere happens to be MY house. I don't have to do ANYTHING you tell me to."

Kami, did I have a death wish or something?

Vegeta wasn't talking, so I continued on.

Very. Stupid.

"Kami, you're an accident! I can't believe I allowed you stay at my house this long! Hell, I don't even know why Frieza kept you around so long, you're such a god-damn nuisance! Your own father didn't even want you, handing you off to Frieza like he did. Are you even his son? I bet you're even an accident on your mother's behalf-"

Ok, everyone go "oooooooh"...

BIG mistake.

One second I was babbling out insult after insult, half in fear now as I realized that I could quite possibly die because of my stupidity...

The next second I was very nearly being killed.

Vegeta had me up against the wall, hand around my neck not allowing any air through. His eyes were filled with a smoldering anger so intense that I'd never seen anything like it before. And I'm fairly certain he almost went super saiyan, if the gold sparks shooting out around him were any clue. His energy was dancing in flames around him, burning against my skin.

I almost fainted from lack of air, when suddenly, he stopped.

That was it, he just...let go.

I was scared shitless.

He turned away from me slightly, arms crossed and form shivering slightly. Then he turned back...and stared at me with dead eyes.

I froze.

Kami, what had I done?

"You're right," he said tonelessly, tightening his grip on his upper arms. "I'll leave, no questions asked." He turned away from me again, arms dropping and hands balling up into tight fists. "Thank you for your hospitality, I'm sorry I was such a burden," he continued coldly. I couldn't turn to look at him. My hands were still pressed against the wall behind me, and I was amazed that I could actually breathe. "I wish your planet luck in its upcoming battle." What? "With any luck, it will survive and you will all DIE." Ah, that's what he meant.

I glanced at his retreating back out of the corner of my eye, not fully comprehending what was happening. But then he paused again, and for some reason his words brought me back to my senses.

"I guess that purple-haired brat won't be sired if I'm leaving, if indeed your assumptions about me being his father are true. Which, being the great genius that you are, it has to be the truth right?" Kami, the sarcasm was just dripping from his voice. "Strangely enough, I don't feel any remorse for him."

And then he was gone.

* * *

:whistles innocently: Hehe. Right, so unfortunately that's the last pre-written chapter I've got, so there's going to be a longer wait from here on out. But don't worry, new updates should be...er...somewhat soon:)

-Maxine


End file.
